Dangerous Radioactive Devices Disappearing In Canada
July 5, 2007 by Homeland Security NTARC News
Filed under Homeland Security News
At least 76 radioactive devices several of which could be used in a terrorist attack have gone missing in Canada over the last five years, newly compiled figures show.
They’re stolen from cars, disappear from construction sites, fall off trucks and generally go astray at an alarming pace.
The Canadian Press has compiled a database showing the rate at which these widely used devices vanish, often for days, sometimes without a trace.
It chronicles dozens of thefts and mishaps involving hazardous equipment employed daily in tasks ranging from oil-well measurements to pioneering medical research.
Thirty-five of these were nabbed by thieves. Three others were found in a roadside ditch, a garbage landfill and a farmer’s field.
And at last count dozens were still missing.
The eye-opening data emerge as anti-terrorism experts warn it’s a matter of when not if readily available material will be used to craft a crude radioactive explosion, or dirty bomb, that could sow panic and cost billions of dollars to clean up.
