# Stolen radioactive cargo recovered **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 5, 2013, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stolen-radioactive-cargo-recovered/675534 "2013-12-05T01:22:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2013, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stolen-radioactive-cargo-recovered/675534/1 "2013-12-05T01:22:48Z")
[Stolen cobalt-60 found abandoned in Mexico](http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2013/12/04/3353441/mexican-truck-with-radioactive.html) > [@](#): > > The highly radioactive material had been removed from its shipping container, officials said, and one predicted that anyone involved in opening the box would be dead within three days. > > \ > > “The person or people who this took out are in very great risk of dying,” Jimenez said, adding that the normal survival rate would be between one and three days. Is there a Mexican idiom for ‘Hoist with his own petard’? But… > [@](#): > > Eibenschutz said earlier that direct exposure to cobalt-60 could result in death within a few minutes, but Jimenez said the pellets were sealed. So maybe the thieves weren’t exposed, and the ‘death sentence’ warning is just a ploy to flush them out as they seek treatment. ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2013, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stolen-radioactive-cargo-recovered/675534/2 "2013-12-05T01:43:27Z")
Co-60’s a gamma emitter. Once the large protective casing has been opened, I think you’re getting zapped if you’re near some pellets. There have been a few accidents before with thieving scrap hunters contaminating themselves and whole neighborhoods. Google Juarez and Radiation incident, as well as the Thai one mentioned at CNN. Quite a lot of rebar had to be scrapped after the Juarez fiasco, after it had already been used in concrete. The Goiana incident in Brazil involved Cs-137, not Co-60, but nevertheless killed several people. That they can’t say for sure whether any of the cobalt is missing is really not good. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2013, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stolen-radioactive-cargo-recovered/675534/3 "2013-12-05T01:51:02Z")
> [@](#): > > That they can’t say for sure whether any of the cobalt is missing is really not good. That would be really not good even if it hadn’t been stolen. Shouldn’t they be keeping precise counts on this sort of thing? ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2013, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stolen-radioactive-cargo-recovered/675534/4 "2013-12-05T02:06:36Z")
The guys here at work were wondering why there wasn’t a second driver, or maybe a guard with a gun? ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2013, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stolen-radioactive-cargo-recovered/675534/5 "2013-12-05T02:59:50Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > The guys here at work were wondering why there wasn’t a second driver, or maybe a guard with a gun? So are the authorities: > [@](#): > > Eibenschutz said the transport company did not follow proper procedures and should have had GPS and security with the truck. > > “The driver also lacked common sense because he decided to park along a highway so he could sleep,” Eibenschutz said. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2013, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stolen-radioactive-cargo-recovered/675534/6 "2013-12-05T17:22:20Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > That would be really not good even if it hadn’t been stolen. Shouldn’t they be keeping precise counts on this sort of thing? Dude, it’s Mexico. They can’t even manage to have drinkable water or functioning law and order. What makes you think that radiological safety is high on their list of things they take care of? ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2013, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stolen-radioactive-cargo-recovered/675534/7 "2013-12-05T17:32:14Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Dude, it’s Mexico. ‘Forget about it, Jake. It’s Olvera Street.’ ---
**Author:** ![ducati](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/cc9497/32.png) [@ducati](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ducati)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stolen-radioactive-cargo-recovered/675534/8 "2013-12-06T18:34:06Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > ‘Forget about it, Jake. It’s Olvera Street.’ 😃 ---
**Author:** ![CBEscapee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b19c9b/32.png) [@CBEscapee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CBEscapee)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2013, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stolen-radioactive-cargo-recovered/675534/9 "2013-12-10T04:24:15Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Dude, it’s Mexico. They can’t even manage to have drinkable water or functioning law and order. What makes you think that radiological safety is high on their list of things they take care of? Dude, Americans have their follies and with potentially far more dangerous results. _"In 1965, for instance, an improperly secured airplane carrying nuclear arms rolled off the aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga and sank into 16,000 feet of ocean off the coast of Japan. In another maritime accident in 1981, a nuclear bomb being carried off the submarine fell seventeen feet and nearly crashed into the USS Holland – an emergency brake caught the fall just above the hull. The Carolinas seem to have bad luck, too. A B-47 bomber flying over Mars Bluff, S.C., in 1958 accidentally dropped an atomic bomb and left a crater 75 feet wide and 35 feet deep. A separate incident in North Carolina was less destructive but much scarier. Just three years later, a B-52 bomber carrying two 24-megaton hydrogen bombs crashed in Goldsboro, N.C. Neither bomb exploded, but only one of the six safety devices worked in one of the bombs. It would have been a disaster 1,800 times more powerful than the bomb that exploded over Hiroshima "_ [http://science.howstuffworks.com/steal-nuclear-bomb2.htm](http://science.howstuffworks.com/steal-nuclear-bomb2.htm)