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The capsule could have been from some industrial entity that should have protected the capsule until it was handed off to a recycler (one who knew what they wer
by runningdogx 15y ago
The capsule could have been from some industrial entity that should have protected the capsule until it was handed off to a recycler (one who knew what they were getting), but didn't (maybe to cut disposal costs, or by accident/laziness). Someone could then have sold the capsule to a Saudi Arabian scrapyard, and they packed it into a container to be melted down in Italy.
Another historical radiation incident caused by failure to protect a radiation source from scrap thieves:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goiania_accident http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goiania_accident
If those thieves in the Goiania incident had just sold the the Cs source to a scrapyard immediately without breaking it open first, the two incidents might have been similar.
- aristus 15y agoThere was another incident 25-odd years ago near where I grew up on the US/Mexico border. Radioactive steel (with cesium or cobalt, from medical equipment, IIRC) was sold for scrap and turned into various things like restaurant tables. It was only discovered when a geiger counter was turned on by a bored geologist waiting for food.
- abbasmehdi 15y agoWow, anything written on the subject?
- aristus 15y agoSurprisingly it's hard to track down. The Wiki article linked abode has one or two mentions of a "Mexico incident", but that's it. Here are some others: http://www.nytimes.com/1984/05/01/science/nuclear-spill-at-juarez-looms-as-one-of-worst.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/1984/05/01/science/nuclear-spill-at-j...
- lgv 15y agoThere's this: http://www.window.state.tx.us/border/ch09/cobalto.html http://www.window.state.tx.us/border/ch09/cobalto.html
- nrser 15y agobest thing about that incident: it all goes terribly wrong when the security guard skips work to watch Herbie Goes Bananas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goiania_accident#Theft_of_the_source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goiania_accident#Theft_of_the_s...