Testing dirty bombs

last updated 8 January 2015

Ural Mountains, Russia

Russian military scientists are experimenting with simulated “dirty bombs” to determine how to limit damage should terrorists explode one. A dirty bomb packs radioactive material like that used in the medical industry into a conventional explosive, spewing low-level radioactivity that wouldn’t immediately kill many people but could contaminate an area for years. In Russia’s Ural Mountains recently, a controlled simulation determined that radiation does not spread evenly according to wind patterns, but randomly on crosscurrents—and very, very quickly. If such a bomb goes off, “you don’t have time to check wind direction,” said Russian energy official Alexander Agapov. “You just move.”