IAEA Transports Dangerous Radioactive Sources from Lebanon to Russia
The International Atomic Energy Agency has transported powerful radioactive sources, which could have been "vulnerable to malicious acts," from Lebanon to Russia end of last month, the IAEA announced Thursday.
"An IAEA mission to get powerful radioactive sources out of Lebanon was completed August 30, 2009, after a plane carrying the high-activity cargo safely touched down in Russia, where the sources are now securely and safely stored," it said.
The sources comprised 36 Cobalt-60 sources, with a combined activity of 3.500 curies. A single source is powerful enough to kill a person within minutes, if directly exposed, it added.
IAEA radioactive source specialist, Robin Heard, who oversaw the mission, said: "Given the political situation in the Middle East and particularly in Lebanon we saw this source as vulnerable to malicious acts. If it was stolen it could cause a lot of damage to people."
The Cobalt-60 sources were from an irradiator that was once used for an agricultural project 10 years ago. The project stopped and the staff that had the knowledge to properly look after the irradiation had left the organization, the IAEA statement said.
However, the director of Lebanon”s Scientific Research Department, Mueen Hamza, told As Safir that the irradiator, which was never used, was intended at castrating male insects.
"The challenges to this project were all security related," Heard said. "Just after we went on our first fact finding mission to Lebanon in 2006, the Israelis bombed the airport, so there was no way we could fly the sources out at that time. So there was a long delay while we waited for things to normalize in Lebanon," Heard said.
The team worked closely with the Lebanese Atomic Energy Commission.
"Having some Cobalt-60 sources for the research irradiator in the agriculture center not secure and not used, posed some threat, actually a lot of threat on the public, on Lebanon. So the IAEA experts, with the acceptance of the Lebanese authorities agreed that they be removed," Muzna Assi, Section Head, Radioactive Waste Management and Safe Transport of Radioactive Sources at the Commission said.
The job involved extracting the sources from the irradiator and moving them to special transport containers. They were then flown to Russia on an airplane hired from the United Arab Emirates specifically for the mission.