"The Washington Post reports that the carjackers who set off
international alarm bells by absconding with a truckload of highly
radioactive cobalt-60, used in hospital radiotherapy machines, most
likely had no idea what they were stealing and will die soon from
exposure. The robbery occurred as the cobalt-60 was being driven from a
public hospital in the border town of Tijuana to a storage facility in
central Mexico. While waiting for daybreak at a gas station in the state
of Hidalgo the drivers were jumped by two gunmen who beat them and stole
the truck. "I believe, definitely, that the thieves did not know what
they had; they were interested in the crane, in the vehicle," says
Mardonio Jimenez, a physicist with Mexico's nuclear safety commission.
The prospect that material that could be used in a radioactive dirty
bomb had gone missing sparked an urgent two-day hunt that concluded when
the material, cobalt-60, used in hospital radiotherapy machines, was
found along with the stolen Volkswagen truck. The cobalt-60 was found,
removed from its casing, in a rural area near the town of Hueypoxtla
about 25 miles from where the truck was stolen. Jimenez suspects that
curiosity got the better of the thieves and they opened the box. So far
the carjackers have not been arrested, but authorities expect they will
not live long. "The people who handled it will have severe problems with
radiation. They will, without a doubt, die.""
*****
Dumb is as dumb does, right, Scotties?
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Religion: together we can find the cure.