Radioactive Material Stolen From Van

Radioactive Material Stolen From Van

news.sky.com

Police have appealed to the public for help after a canister containing a small amount of radioactive material was stolen from a van over the weekend.

The container was taken from the vehicle in Bacup, Lancashire.

Officers were alerted to the theft in the early hours of Monday after the van driver discovered the material was missing.

The Peugeot Panel Van had been parked in New Line, to the south of Bacup.

The stolen canister is in a yellow case which is one foot long and said to be fairly heavy.

Chief Inspector Russ Procter from Burnley Police said: "It is important that this material is located as soon as possible.

(visit the link for the full news article)

I'm not sure how easy it is to use something like this for nefarious reasons, but i can't see someone stealing this to make their own radiotherapy machine.

Let's hope it's found soon, according to some reports, it is one of the ingredients that can be used for a dirty bomb.

Does anyone else know of more common uses for this stuff?

CX.

news.sky.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by CX


see the movie 'repo man'

Clearly, someone knew that this stuff was just sitting in an unattended van. Is this the kind of material that should just be left in a van?? Apparently not.... Should be interesting...

Maybe Marty McFly just needed enough fuel to get back to 1985 again.

Ssssssst, don't tell them

What was the van driver doing with it in the first place? And why was it left,unattended. The driver should be held responsible to anything that happens due to this.

fair enough i didn't read all the article just skimmed it but couldn't see anything specific.

its,my understanding a dirty bomb is normal explosive with radioactive material ie it wont cause a nuclear explosion but just spread contaminated material over the blast radius and with a half,life of 73 days of it,was stolen for that use,itll happen pretty soon!

i hope its just some idiot thinking its worth a few quid rather than an evil person with a hate,filled heart

Why was radioactive material In a van unattended anyway? That sounds suspicious to me....maybe the driver of the van needs to be investigated to see if he's in deep debt and just sold a case of it for some money..sounds like an inside job to me....The only other reason would be if some nosey kids thought they scored some cool tool box , grabbed it, and now they have it hidden under their bed until mom goes to work and they can pull it out and look at it. By that time, it will be leaking and they will shrivel up into a big blister and die. ( nice thought ,uh.)

reply to post by CX
Hmmmmmmm.....if I were a paranoid conspiracy theorist I might would speculate that the van may have been left unattended intentionally for the specific purpose of said radioactive materials being able to mysteriously disappear, and would probably speculate as to whether such an occurrence could have been set up by one of our own government agencies. Good thing I'm not a paranoid conspiracy theorist lest such thoughts would probably make me even more paranoid.

As others have posted, I hope that the person(s) involved dont have bad intentions to use this for....

This van should have been properly marked and LOCKED properly as well. I hope that the case it was in was sealed to prevent leaking into the environment.

I just hope that not to much details about it is given to the public...because if the people involved did NOT know what they were doing, the last thing we want is to give them crazy ideas.

I hope they find is asap!

so it would appear that Britain will shortly have its own Goiania accident.

I hope the Darwin candidate that took it is the only person effected by this.
Apparently the lead container was clearly labelled as radioactive.

It kind of makes me think, :-

1. why stored in an ordinary van ?
2. what numb nut wants to take something with a radioactive sticker on it ?

what a stupid thick idiot

Originally posted by diddy1234
2. what numb nut wants to take something with a radioactive sticker on it ?

That last part got me thinking... maybe he just thought it was a joke. Sometimes people put stickers on things just for the hell of it. I have a few instrument cases that I put stickers on for example, and one of them has a sticker on it that says "Biological Waste" with the exact same logo that you'd see in hospitals. As a matter of fact, it looks identical to the ones in hospitals. Nobody would be able to tell the difference. So I was thinking that maybe the guy thought it was a box full of valuables that somebody had jokingly slapped a sticker on.

maybe they shouldnve had a gps transponder on the case, so if it did go missing, it could be tracked. who leaves sensitive materials like that in a regular van? derp.

Pope resigns...meteors falling....missing radioactive case........sounds like its all tying into the same phrophesies ! ( kidding...)

just a couple of punks stealing something that looked "cool".....highly radioactive material is not transported in a "unguarded van" ...probably low grade for various industrial uses

This happening in Houston TX many years ago. I worked for a pharm's company warehouse and we had a radioactive product that was distributed to hospitals. Meditope - nuclear isotope generators to make body scanning agents in hospitals.

A delivery man had two stolen from his truck.

The news stations made a broadcast and the two generators where found abandoned in a packing lot. Guess the idea of screwing around with radioactive materials changed the thief's mind.

But, today it is a different world.

Every month this happens in America. You can go to the Nuclear Regulatory Commissions "Event Reports" website and read every month about radioactive material getting stolen / lost.

Somebody's got enough to make thousands of "dirty bombs" out there.

They don't have a clue where any of it that's been stolen over the decades has gone.

Likely foreign ops have it stockpiled all over America ready to use.

Iridium 192 in bulk metallic form ,appears to be fairly innocent, aside from if it is in a powdered or form, whereupon handling can become hazardous, as the substance in that form is an irritant, and can ignite on contact with air. It has various industrial and medical uses, but aside from its capacity to ignite in air when powdered, it is difficult to see what purpose it would serve to a creep.

Of course, being a radioisotope the usual dangers apply. Accidental exposure to some forms of iridium can cause cancer, radiation burns, and so on and so forth. Ingestion can cause burning of the various digestive tract components, and the liver tends to fare rather badly when this stuff ends up flowing through it, as the stuff has a tendancy to collect in that organ, if it is passed through it.

But the same could be said of many other, easier come by, and more abundant substances. Iridium 192 is something in the order of 80 times less abundant than silver and mercury, there are only three elements that are less abundant in the crustal rock. There is likely to be much more iridium in the Earths total make up, but because iridium seems to seek iron, it sunk toward the core of the planet, during its formation, and only very small amounts remain in the crustal rock that we mine.

This means that if the intent of the thief was the creation of some sort of poison, then they chose poorly. The more common a murder weapon, the more difficult it is to trace, no matter wether you are talking about blunt force trauma, or using radioactivity to poison a target, the rule still applies.

If the stuff in the van was stolen to order, I would be suprised if it was stolen for the purpose of creating a weapon with it, for either small or large scale use. There must be some specific, probably industrial requirement involved, if this was anything more than a random theft. Of course, there is always the random element to consider, and if that is the case, I hope the thief uses his head, and hands this stuff in. While not terrifying in a "Oh Noes! WMD materialz are loose! We really ARE all gonna die!" kind of way, anyone who comes into close proximity with the unshielded contents of that container, assuming the gormless fool who stole it was enough of a clod to open it, will be at risk of radiation damage of some sort.

During my looking into the properties of Iridium 192, I came across a segment on one page (which I have helpfully forgotten the name and web location of, sorry ) that stated that the substance can output both gamma and beta radiation. So, no major concern at this point, but still... I hope this stuff is either located and reclaimed, or gotten to someplace safe, at least stored responsibly.

I don't buy it.
Radioactive material doesn't happen to travel alone, in casual vans, being left there over night.
I bet is something more important/dangerous; the "radioactive" part is for the public, and maybe for those who took it to be afraid to open the canister. Or someone knew exactly what and where to look for, and the published version is an excuse for the next test/missile/virus gone wrong.

reply to post by WhiteHat


Really? You would be suprised, I think, to realise just how much radioactive material is transported, under the noses of the public, in what would seem to you and I, to be utterly inadequate security conditions. Unless the isotope in question is considered to be among those which are capable of being weaponised, there is very rarely any great fuss attatched to thier transport.

And do not forget, that these things travel between hospitals and universities all the time. As long as they are shielded, and handled properly when outside thier containers, pose little risk to anyone. It is certainly true that it seems absurd to think that it was left in the van overnight, and Im sure the transporter who was carrying it feels a right pillock just about now. But that is probably the extent of the strangeness of this incident.

It really doesn't say left overnight. He could have been doing deliveries in the night and it disappeared at one of the stops. Or it was picked up in the night and was going to be delivered with the next few hours.