Chinese "Find" Radioactive Ball

[Stuart G]

Source: BBC

Chinese "find" radioactive ball


Chinese officials say that potentially deadly radioactive material lost in north-western Shaanxi province may have been found at a steel mill.

Officials told the BBC that they had detected what may be the missing Caesium-137, adding that it may have been melted down.

The Caesium-137, encased in lead, was lost this week when workers at a cement plant demolished an old factory.

The material was part of a measuring instrument and is extremely toxic.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7967285.stm

---

The fact that this was, "lost" is not a very good sign. Potential harm from such.."loses" could be beyond comprehension. Loses such as this could destroy world peace.

[Vinca]

1. Melted down? Beware of metal toys from China. nt

[crikkett]

13. Not to mention cooking utensils. n/t

[Buzz Clik]

2. How could the loss of Cs-137 destroy world peace?

[Stuart G]

3. Perhaps if many people are killed due to this loss, then

it could be twisted into a deliberate act of killing. Wars have been started for lesser reasons.

[Buzz Clik]

4. Oh. I guess it's a good thing they announced the discovery.

That way no one could assume it was intentional. I guess world peace is safe for a while.

[trotsky]

5. "I guess world peace is safe for a while."

Gotta hand it to you on that one. :D

[TechBear_Seattle]

10. Two words: dirty bomb

Cesium-137 is toxic enough that, with a few pounds of explosives, it could poison a good sized area of a major city. The target country would, of course, be obligated to retaliate against the area where the perpetrators are suspected of hiding out. That country would, in turn, be obligated to retaliate, and so on, and so on.

[Dogmudgeon]

6. Caesium 137 is not good bomb material

BUT ... it is incredibly radioactive. A small thimble of Cs137 that was stolen from a hospital http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident">contaminated over 200 people in Goiania, Brazil. Several of them died, and it is thought that there were a number of casualties (and deaths) that escaped detection.

In order to get "loses (...) beyond comprehension", you'd have to work at it, like turning it into a "dirty bomb". But casual contact in a city area could still affect several hundred people. Only Polonium-210 is a more radioactive physically stable substance.

You can't play fast and loose with this stuff. It has tremendous value in medicine and in industry, but the record of Chinese industry with any kind of safety implementation is piss-poor.

--d!

[Stuart G]

9. "Beyond Comprehension" sure...

A small war, that kills maybe 100,000 might "beyond comprehension" or would it?

Could a small war be started using this stuff? So there is no bomb, just intend to kill. Some hot headed leader could start a war if some 200 to a thousand people were killed using this stuff. Or maybe just some leader that was looking for an excuse to start a war.

War and death are often so ugly we don't want to know. Did one thousand really die because the government did not do everything possible to save those in the way of Katrina? How many could have been saved. Do you think that Clinton could have done better? Clinton would have saved one half.

The idea of a small war killing a few thousand here and there over this stuff being released on purpose is possible. Anything is possible. It is no joke.

[originalpckelly]

19. Not bomb-bomb material, but dirty bombs would obviously be its use.

:wow:

I'm shocked at how easily this seems to have happened.

[jberryhill]

7. Ah... good.... I was wondering where I left that

Did the article give any instructions on how I can get that back?

It's just been one of those weeks. First, my hair went bad, then I had a shaving accident, and on top of it all I've been going through every closet and under the furniture trying to figure out where on earth I left my big metal ball of cesium isotopes.

My wife has been on my back with, "I told you a thousand times to put that over by the polonium, but, noooo, Mr. 'I'll put my cesium all over the house' is too smart for that. Well, how smart are you going to be when someone shows up at the door with three arms and your cesium ball." So, she wouldn't even help me find it.

Anyway, I'm really glad they found it.

[ashling]

8. " Loses such as this could destroy world peace. " WTF?

Just how do you destroy what doesn't exist. Thank the gods there is not a full scale war between the "superpowers" or something on that scale, but don't confuse that with WORLD PEACE

[crikkett]

14. "Losses" -spelling police (I know, you're quoting OP) n/t

[ashling]

16. The Spelling Police are

a threat to world peace !

:rofl:

[denem]

17. The secret policeman

had the ball all the time ;)

[FailureToCommunicate]

11. Lost nuclear material. Yeah, real funny. There was a case a few years back

were radioactive metals lost in Mexico had gotten into cast iron chairs bound for the US. It was only discovered because the truck hauling them made a wrong
turn into Laurence Livermore Labs and set off alarms... And that one was accidental, not terrorists trying to buy and use the stuff.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/WNT/Technology/story?id=1200705&page=1

Thanks to George Bush for spending Homeland Security billions to keep us safer. NOT!

[Lasher]

12. China has an appalling record on industrial safety

There are around 30 cases of radioactive material being lost every year.

That's from the article linked in the OP.

[Gin]

15. Geez...aren't we buying steel from China? Can they trace anything

made with this stuff?

[Hekate]

20. IF the Bush government hadn't gutted consumer product safety departments, and IF previous admins...

... hadn't agreed to such foolish trade agreements, and IF international mega-corporations run by US companies had even an iota of conscience, and IF China and their manufacturers cared about people in the first place -- why then yes, everything could be tracked from beginning to end.

By the time the container ships arrive at US docks, it's too late -- only 5% of the shipments get checked at this end. There's no money and no staff to do more. And when someone gets hurt at this end -- say a child teething on a lead-contaminated toy or a cat eating melamine-laced pet food or antifreeze cough syrup killing hundreds of children -- well, we simply don't have the staff and funds at this end just now to adequately pursue the matter. (for the antifreeze thing, read here http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/world/americas/06poison.html?_r=1&oref=slogin )

This mess has GOT to be dealt with by the US federal government reaching from this country to the sources in China, with laws and money and above all inspectors. Laws, I might add, with big teeth in them.

I have my fingers crossed, but I wonder if I should be investing in a Geiger counter.

Hekate

typo

[Lasher]

21. And did you check out the thing upthread about the metal chairs from Mexico?

Looks like they caught it by accident.

Cesium can be some bad shit. It's used to irradiate food, which is a good thing. You just pass the food through an enclosure where you got some cesium and presto, there's no bacteria in the food anymore. That's because nothing can live in that enclosure.

I used to have a cesium clock at work. Couldn't load it on a passenger aircraft or drive through tunnels with it. I had to have some scary looking warning stickers on the case I carried it in. But the clock just had a tiny bit of cesium in it, not enough to be deadly.

[originalpckelly]

18. Way to fuck up China, Caesium-137 is FUCKING DIRTY BOMB MATERIAL!

Yeah, it's like THE element to use in a dirty bomb! I can't fucking believe that country! We must hope that it's all there, and that no other mistakes like this are happening.

[christx30]

22. You say mistakes

like they are actually mistakes. The Chinese hate us. I wouldn't be surprised if the "mistakes" in the past 2 years with the pet food and baby formula and lead painted toys weren't probing of our consumer product safety screens. See what can get past the inspectors. Who knows what toxic crap they have in store to weaken this country. Military hardware? Tires? Computer chips? Pirated software with security back doors?
And even if they don't do the attack directly, what's to stop them from giving the stuff to terrorists,
Just like in that documentary "Team America: World Police"?
We need to stop buying their crap. Not just for product safety, but for national security.

[AndyTiedye]

23. They Will Be Offering Glow-in-the-Dark Toys this Christmas