Meanwhile in Vietnam

[madd0ct0r]

A cannister of radioactive material has gone missing. This is a big news story, with plenty of people worried it's been picked up by one of the little old ladies who do the recycling and will shortly be sawn open.

if seen, please return to the authorities:



(It came out of a steel factory, so it's probably a gamma emitter from a sheet thickness measuring rig)

Would you like to know more?
http://vnexpress.net/tin-tuc/thoi-su/vu ... 78318.html

[Purple]

How dangerous would it be to have one of those as a wall hanger?

[mr friendly guy]

In case someone can't read Vietnamese ie most people here myself included, I have found an English source such as Straits times.

http://www.straitstimes.com/news/asia/s ... l-factory-

[Thanas]

Kinda reminds me like those Soviet nuclear lighthouses where people ripped out the reactors to get to the steel and reuse it.

[Borgholio]

Nuclear lighthouse? I wouldn't have believed it untill I just Googled it. :-/

[Zaune]

How dangerous would it be to have one of those as a wall hanger?

Not particularly, unless it went rusty or fell on your toe.

[Elheru Aran]

How dangerous would it be to have one of those as a wall hanger?

Not particularly, unless it went rusty or fell on your toe.

They're basically big cans of lead with a shutter on the end, from what I understand. The actual amount of radioactive material is fairly small, but it's enough to make people exposed to it rather ill should it be extracted from the container-- but they'd still have to be exposed for a while, ingest it or have skin contact or something like that. Inside the container, it's pretty safe. There aren't *that* many radioactive materials which are actively and rapidly hazardous to people. They tend to be rare and highly controlled. This is probably just some uranium pellets or whatever, I don't know what they use in those machines.

[SpottedKitty]

Kinda reminds me like those Soviet nuclear lighthouses where people ripped out the reactors to get to the steel and reuse it.

Don't forget the radiation therapy machine that was left in a closed-down Mexican hospital and was hauled away for scrap. From what I remember, no-one realised what had happened until a scrap lorry went over the US border and their Geiger counters went berserk.

[Irbis]

Nuclear lighthouse? I wouldn't have believed it untill I just Googled it. :-/

What? You ever took look at Russian norther shore's map? All traffic there needs to be really close to shore due to ice threat but at the same time the shore is hundreds if not thousands of km from nearest city. How you'd expect to man or even power them? Automation with independent power source is about the only answer

Not particularly, unless it went rusty or fell on your toe.

Given last incident like this I'd be a bit more careful with that assessment...

This is probably just some uranium pellets or whatever, I don't know what they use in those machines.

Didn't MFG link specify Cobalt-60? This isn't particularly harmless isotope, I'd think.

[mr friendly guy]

Didn't MFG link specify Cobalt-60? This isn't particularly harmless isotope, I'd think.

Indeed I did. I will better post what part the Straits Times lets me see as a non subscriber.

Vietnam hunting for box of radioactive material that went missing from steel factory
PUBLISHED ON APR 8, 2015 2:27 PM 0 72 0 0


HANOI (AFP) - The Vietnamese authorities are searching for a lead box containing hazardous radioactive material which has gone missing from a steel factory, an official said on Wednesday.

The box of cobalt-60, which has a wide range of uses including for radiotherapy and in industry, has disappeared from the Vietnamese-owned Pomina steel mill in the south of the country.

"(We) do not know how and when the container went missing," Mr Do Vu Khoa, an official with the Department of Science and Technology in the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau, told AFP. "We are searching for the radiation box."

The silver-white container weighs 45kg and is some 45cm long and 15.2cm wide, the department said in a statement. "It contains Co-60 which was used for liquid measurement. It poses a potential danger to the environment and people's health," the statement said.

[Borgholio]

What? You ever took look at Russian norther shore's map? All traffic there needs to be really close to shore due to ice threat but at the same time the shore is hundreds if not thousands of km from nearest city. How you'd expect to man or even power them? Automation with independent power source is about the only answer

Russia had one of the largest fleets of icebreakers in the world, including a few nuclear powered ones as well. I always assumed they just used them to resupply.