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Have Radioactive Devices Fallen Into The Hands Of Nuclear Terroristts
February 1, 2002
http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?f=/stories/20020201/1306566.html
UN atomic body hunts for highly potent devices
As radioactive as Chernobyl: Three ill after using 'mystery' containers to keep warm in Georgia
Margaret Munro
National Post
International Atomic Energy Agency
Discarded radioactive canisters in Georgia are similar to ones the International Atomic Energy Agency is trying to track down.
http://www.nationalpost.com/
Emergency response workers are heading into a mountainous region of the former Soviet Union in an attempt to retrieve two highly radioactive devices that could have fallen into the hands of nuclear terrorists.
The team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is in the breakaway Abkhazia region, in northwest Georgia, to help find the potent devices, which were discovered in the woods by three men searching for firewood.
One of the men is critically ill with radiation burns, said Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the IAEA, the United Nations agency that monitors nuclear activities worldwide.
"Certainly, Georgia considers this an emergency situation, and we do as well," Ms. Fleming said. "There are people who are severely burned and there are [radioactive] sources that are unprotected that need to be recovered and secured."
The devices, which measure only 10 centimetres by 15 centimetres, are so charged with radioactive strontium-90 they are emitting an estimated 40,000 curies, she says.
This is equivalent to the amount of radiation released during the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident.
Joseph McDonald, a senior nuclear scientist at the U.S. Pacific Northwest Nuclear Laboratory, in Washington State, says 40,000 curies of radiation poses a serious health risk. "These men could easily have received a life-threatening amount of radiation in a very short amount of time," he said.
The devices, believed to have been discarded from abandoned electrical generators, are "extremely, extremely, extremely potent," Ms. Fleming said.
The IAEA has grown increasingly concerned about illicit trafficking of nuclear materials from the former Soviet Union. The fear is terrorists could get their hands on the discarded devices and create so-called "dirty" nuclear bombs that would contaminate vast areas and spread panic.
A report published today in the journal Science, which Ms. Fleming says is accurate, describes the current efforts in Russia. In early December, three Georgian men gathering wood near Lja came across the containers, which were so warm they were melting the surrounding snow.
"Lugging the containers back to their campsite for warmth, the men soon became dizzy and nauseous and started vomiting," the report says. "Within a week, radiation burns began to develop on their backs."
Georgian officials appealed to the IAEA for help, and the agency dispatched three investigators on Jan. 4. But heavy snow and rough terrain have hindered efforts to retrieve the devices.
An IAEA emergency team will try again this weekend with help from local people, Ms. Fleming says. The team has constructed a special "tele-manipulator" with which to handle the devices, and a lead-lined iron box for safe-keeping. Once retrieved, Ms. Fleming says they will be trucked to a special facility in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital.
Officials from the IAEA, Georgia, France, Russia and the United States will meet in Tbilisi on Tuesday to discuss the problem and determine what can be done about other "orphan" radioactive devices discarded and abandoned in the former Soviet Union.
"Many have been found at abandoned Soviet military bases," Ms. Fleming said, noting four similar devices have turned up in Georgia.
IAEA investigators believe the "mystery containers," as Science describes them, were built to generate heat and electricity and may have been used to power remote radio transmitters.
"As the beta particles streaming from the strontium-90 slam into the metal shielding, part of the energy is converted into X-rays and part into heat," Science explains. "Soviet labs apparently produced several hundred of the generators, including some with radioactivity levels as high as 100,000 curies. None of these high-powered models has yet turned up and a handful of the 40,000-curie devices have been recovered in covert operations in four countries: Georgia, Belarus, Estonia and Tajikistan."
The IAEA is not keen to make public how such devices might be used by terrorists. Ms Fleming would say only: "We certainly don't want to see them get in the wrong hands."
The strontium-90 devices are made of titanium-based ceramic, and usually clad in a protective shielding. For some reason, the shielding had been removed from the two devices found by the woodsmen.
Ms. Fleming says one of the men is critically ill and may have to be transferred to a special facility in France. A second man is in serious condition and the third is in "OK condition," she said. "He should probably be all right."
She could not say how old the men are.
Submitted on 02/01/02
Submitted by:
Larry Feurzeig
Reference:
National Post/Canada/Feb 1 '02
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