Re: Chechenian theft of cobalt 60 - 1E16 Bq?

["J. J. Rozental" <josrozen@netmedia.net.il>]

Dear Bjorn

        You intend to draw our attention on the possibility of a very
serious radiological accident to have occurred.
        Unfortunately if the press does not give any information it will be
difficulty, at least now, to obtain official details. This is common in
Radiological Accident/incident. We have learnt this on recent Radiological
Accident, as  in Costa Rica, Acerinox (Spain) and Turkey. 

        Your  description of the sources is typically  from sources  used in
Gamma Irradiators. There are two Classes of Gamma Irradiators:
Self-Contained Gamma Irradiators and Panoramic Gamma Irradiators, and four
Categories, two in each Class. Categories I and III are types of
Self-Contained Gamma Irradiators and II and IV are types of Panoramic Gamma
Irradiators. Storage of  the sources in categories I and III is in dray
container, while in Categories II and IV, storage for the sources is  in a
water filled pool. For Self-contained Gamma Irradiators, activities of up to
500 TBq Co-60 are utilized (about 15,000 Ci) while for Panoramic  Gamma
Irradiators large activities of about  10 to 200 PBq  (300,000 to 6,000.000
Ci) are generally used.
                                                                             
        Taking into account the design and material of these sources and
irradiators, to explain how  the  three thieves in Grozny, Chechnya could
handling such sources, is really a complex exercise for imagination. This
remind me  the Radiological Accident in Juarez (Mexico) and the Radiological
Accident in Goiania (Brazil, or even the recent in Turkey. However the
sources in these  cases was below than the value that you mentioned in Chechnya.

I can postulate some scenarios on how this could  be happen, specially for
Self-Contained Gamma Irradiators, Category I,  used in university and
research. However let's wait a little more for more realistic information.

   J. J. Rozental
josrozen@netmedia.net.il
Israel




At 02:12 PM 9/27/99 -0500, you wrote:
>If the story is true - I would guess that it is about
>some sterilizing equipment or similar type of source(s).
>I have two informations regarding the number of rods:
>One says 252 - the other one says nine.
>The "one million Bq" was probably a misunderstanding by
>a journalist who had been in touch with the Swedish
>Radiation Protection Institute - I spoke with a couple
>of the staff there earlier today.
>Bjorn Cedervall   bcradsafers@hotmail.com
>
>
>>From: Kerembaev@cs.com
>>Reply-To: radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu
>>To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
>>Subject: Re: Chechenian theft of cobalt 60 -  1E16 Bq?
>>Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 13:26:45 -0500 (CDT)
>>
>>Radsafers,
>>
>>I missed the beginning of this topic.
>>Is there some terrorist act in progress or sources are just missing? Is it 
>>in
>>Moscow??
>>By the amount of the activity it looks like small radiography sources.
>>
>>Emil.
>>kerembaev@cs.com
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jjrozental

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