VILNIUS, Lithuania (Reuters) -- Lithuanian officials warned the country's 3.5 million citizens on Friday to be on the lookout for a missing radioactive U.S. $100 bank note.
Officials in the ex-Soviet state say they do not know how the note became radioactive, but one theory is that it could have come somewhere in Eastern Europe that still has a high level of post-Chernobyl contamination.
It was discovered in September when it set off alarms at an airport checkpoint and was quarantined in a safe room.
But the bank note was reported missing -- probably stolen -- on Tuesday just before it was due to be shipped to a nuclear power plant to be destroyed.
The chief of Lithuania's radioactive substances security agency, Albinas Mastauskas, told Reuters the note was not potent enough to cause burns. But it could pose long-term health risks for children or pregnant women.
In Lithuania, one of the European Union's poorest countries, $100 is equivalent to about two-thirds of the monthly minimum wage.
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