Radiological Weapons:  Radioactive Shipments Are Vulnerable to Terrorist Attacks, Experts Say

Participants at an International Atomic Energy Agency conference on the safe transportation of radioactive materials have said that countries are unprepared to respond to a terrorist attack on such shipments, Reuters reported Friday (see GSN, July 8).

Current emergency response plans in many countries are only able to handle “unintelligent accidents,” according to John Large, a nuclear issues consultant hired by Greenpeace.  Countries have failed to plan for “an intelligent terrorist attack where they know the vulnerabilities of your emergency plan,” Large said.

IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei told the Vienna-based conference that international regulations and industry practices have “an excellent safety record.”

“Over several decades of transporting radioactive material, there has not been an in-transit accident with serious human health, economic or environmental consequences,” ElBaradei said.

The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, however, demonstrated that there is “room for improvement” in increasing the security of radioactive material shipments, an IAEA official said (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters/Yahoo!News, July 11).

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Radiological Weapons:  British Police Issue Alert Over Depleted Uranium Theft

British police last week issued a national alert after thieves stole a van containing 30 pounds of depleted uranium from a radioactive waste processing firm, according to the London Sunday Times (see GSN, July 8).

The stolen van had been left unlocked and the keys were in the ignition, according to the Times. 

Nuclear physicist Frank Barnaby said that terrorists might have wanted the material for use in a “dirty bomb,” which combines conventional explosives and radioactive materials.

“If you exploded such a device in Oxford Street the police would be under pressure to evacuate a wide area,” Barnaby said.  “The uranium would spread all over and people would get it on their clothes and take it home with them,” he said (David Leppard, London Sunday Times, July 13).

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