gonna post early, something from 2013
Stolen Radioactive Material Found In Mexico
Updated at 11:30 p.m. ET: Cobalt-60 Found
Mexican officials say they've recovered the "extremely dangerous" radioactive cobalt-60 that was stolen last week, hours after finding its empty containter.
The Associated Press reports:
"A missing shipment of radioactive cobalt-60 was found Wednesday near where the stolen truck transporting the material was abandoned in central Mexico, the country's nuclear safety director said.
"The highly radioactive material had been removed from its container, officials said, and one predicted that anyone involved in opening the box could be in grave danger of dying within days.
"The cobalt-60 was left in a rural area about a kilometer (a half a mile) from Hueypoxtla, an agricultural town of about 4,000 people, but it posed no threat or a need for an evacuation, said Juan Eibenschutz, director general of the National Commission of Nuclear Safety and Safeguards.
"'Fortunately there are no people where the source of radioactivity is,' Eibenschutz said."
The incident began on Monday, when a white Volkswagen truck carrying the container was stolen at a gas station in Mexico.
On Tuesday, Mexico's nuclear safety group, known as CNSNS, issued a public alert, saying that federal, state and local authorities were looking in at least six states for the Volkswagen Worker truck, which is equipped with a crane and bears the license plate 726-DT-8.
From the BBC:
"The radiotherapy source was being taken from a hospital in the northern city of Tijuana to a waste storage center.
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More in the article
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/12/04/248737662/radioactive-truck-goes-missing-in-mexico-alerts-are-issued