Somewhere in Kyrgyzstan
Hundreds of portable radioactive devices were planted all over the former Soviet Union in the 1970s, and the International Atomic Energy Agency is now trying to find them before terrorists do, The Washington Post reported this week. Research into radiation’s effects on crops had stopped by the time the USSR fell apart in 1991, but the records were lost, so nobody knows exactly where the radioactive canisters are. Each of the lead-shielded devices, which look like antique milk cans, contains enough cesium 137 to contaminate a small city for decades. “It’s like talc—extremely dispersible,” said the IAEA’s Abel Gonzales. “You don’t even need a bomb. Just open a can and people will die.” The IAEA has found five cans in Georgia and four in Moldova; others are thought to be in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan.
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