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Wikileaks reveal incidents with radioactive and nuclear materials

WikiLeaks: uranium bricks and radioactive trains among nuclear terror scares, Telegraph UK. American officials around the world are locked in a constant race to stop terrorists and rogue states from obtaining nuclear, biological and chemical materials which could be used to construct a “dirty bomb”. By Heidi Blake   02 Feb 2011

These are some of the incidents and extraordinary potential plots involving some of the world’s most dangerous and volatile materials which are disclosed in the WikiLeaks cables:

The ‘scrap metal’ train

Radiation alarms installed on the border crossing between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan sounded in November 2007 as a freight train travelling from Kyrgyzstan to Iran passed through Nazarbek rail station. Customs officials halted the train to perform an examination and found that a single carriage ostensibly packed with “scrap metal” was perilously radioactive. So high were the radiation levels that officials were instructed not to pass within five metres of the carriage, making it impossible to come close enough to open it. At the time of the last dispatch to Washington, sent in January 2008, the rail car was still unopened and remained in quarantine.

The London tip-off

In November 2007, the US embassy in London received a telephone call from a British deep-sea salvage merchant based in Sheffield, who claimed that his business associates in the Philippines had found six uranium “bricks” at the site of an underwater wreck. The uranium had formerly belonged the US. The merchant provided nine photographs of the bricks, which he said his associates wanted to sell for a profit. It is not clear whether diplomats agreed to the purchase.

The Congolese uranium liquid

Officials in the US embassy in Uganda were approached in February 2008 by a source……..
The mine theft

In September 2009, two employees working at the Rossing Uranium Mine in Namibia smuggled almost half a ton of the uranium concentrate powder – known as “yellowcake” – out of the compound in plastic carrier bags. …….
The radioactive car

A car carrying three Armenian men set off a radiation detector on the Georgian-Armenian border in August 2009…..
The Chernobyl nuclear plates

A Portuguese man walked into the US embassy in Lisbon in July 2008 offering to sell six uranium plates that had been stolen from Chernobyl –……
The Russian train

During the summer of 2009, Russian customs officers reported three incidents in which cobalt-60, a highly radioactive substance, was detected in passenger trains travelling from Kazakhstan to Russia. . A large number of passengers were exposed to the radiation………

WikiLeaks: uranium bricks and radioactive trains among nuclear terror scares – Telegraph

February 2, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, safety