Missing radioactive material found at petrol station
By Catherine Hardy | With REUTERS



"They may have heard everyone was looking for this material and decided to get it off their hands"

ZUBAIR: -- Radioactive material that went missing in Iraq has been found dumped near the country’s southern town of Zubair.

It is not clear how the material, which is owned by Swiss inspections group SGS, ended up being left in a petrol station.

The town is 15km southwest of the city of Basra.

Officials say the find has ended speculation that it had been acquired by extremists to be used to fabricate a weapon.

Officials think the device was stolen and then dumped when they were unable to sell it on.

“They may have heard that everyone was looking for it and decided to get it off their hands,” said Nash’at Saqban al-Maksosi, Chief Planning Officer of Basra Council.

“They may have stolen the material for use for other purposes but could not get it out of Basra and so they dumped it.”

The material was stored in a protective case the size of a laptop computer. It was undamaged and there are no concerns about radiation contamination.

The authorities say the consignment went missing in November from a storage facility near Basra belonging to US oilfield services company Weatherford.

It is owned by Swiss inspections group, SGS.

Gamma rays

The material uses gamma rays to test for flaws in components of oil and gas pipelines.

The process is called industrial gamma radiography.

The IAEA classes it as as Category 2 radioactive source.

This means if it is not managed properly, it could cause permanent injury to anyone in close proximity.

Exposure can be fatal if it extends over a period of hours or days.


-- (c) Copyright Euronews 2016-02-22

Category of radioactive sources

The categories for radioactive sources are defined by the IAEA's Code of Conduct to help ensure that radioactive sources are used within an appropriate framework of radiation safety and security.

• Category 1 sources, if not safely managed or securely protected, would be likely to cause permanent injury to a person who handled them or was otherwise in contact with them for more than a few minutes. It would probably be fatal to be close to this amount of unshielded material for a period of a few minutes to an hour. These sources are typically used in practices such as radiothermal generators, irradiators, and radiation teletherapy.
  
• Category 2 sources, if not safely managed or securely protected, could cause permanent injury to a person who handled them or was otherwise in contact with them for a short time (minutes to hours). It could possibly be fatal to be close to this amount of unshielded radioactive material for a period of hours to days. These sources are typically used in practices such as industrial gamma radiography, high dose rate brachytherapy and medium dose rate brachytherapy.
  
• Category 3 sources, if not safely managed or securely protected, could cause permanent injury to a person who handled them or was otherwise in contact with them for some hours. It could possibly -- although it is unlikely -- be fatal to be close to this amount of unshielded radioactive material for a period of days to weeks. These sources are typically used in practices such as fixed industrial gauges involving high activity sources (for example, level gauges, dredger gauges, conveyor gauges, and spinning pipe gauges) and well logging.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission

A common element used for imaging metal defects is hafnium. One gram of a hafnium-based explosive could store more energy than 50 kilograms of TNT. Nowhere near the blast effect of a nuclear device but it will be "dirty."

It is unlikely enough of hafnium was stolen to present any greater danger than conventional explosives aside from radioactivity. Current technology can only produce hafnium in amounts less than one ten-thousandth of a gram. So it is also unlikely any significant hafnium was stolen.

Example of a 50 kg TNT explosion.

Ohh i cant be ars.d carrying this anymore just leave it here for someone else.

Sounds like something out of Monty python.

Actually it was a delivery for a Dr Emmett Brown, for his DeLorean.