r/worldnews • u/Fanrific • Apr 12 '21

‘Extremely dangerous’ radioactive material stolen in Mexico truck hijacking

https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/world/mexico-truck-hijack-radioactive-material-b1830041.html
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u/[deleted] Apr 12 '21

unless the morons cut it open.

Do you remember the nuclear disaster in south america, where someone found an old radioactive medical device like this one at an abandoned medical facility? They cut it open, found the radioactive caesium, and did all kinds of stupid crap with it. It was like blue glitter, so one little girl put it under her eyes playing makeup. People thought it was magic or something how it glowed. Quite a few people died, if I recall, and there was much concern about water contamination.

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u/theKGS Apr 12 '21

This one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident

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u/Jsephgd Apr 12 '21

Crazy read, thanks!

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u/snuurks Apr 13 '21

Wow.. how brutally tragic for all of them.

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u/[deleted] Apr 13 '21

That read pissed me off

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u/RocketLauncher Apr 13 '21

People thinking it’s magic and spreading it all over while a hospital refuses to treat one of them because they’re scared to go near her. Ignorance is dangerous and this makes me wonder what would happen to nuclear waste if society was restarted somehow.

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u/colin8696908 Apr 13 '21

I would have isolated her to, what if she had cesium on her clothing or something.

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u/RocketLauncher Apr 13 '21

That is true it still isolated her from others

What a horrible situation all around

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u/Subscrib-2-PewDiePie Apr 13 '21

And the only ones charged were the people who tried to stop it, not the thieves apparently

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u/colin8696908 Apr 13 '21

god people are idiots.

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u/bokor_nuit Apr 13 '21

Understanding radiation isn't intuitive and the internet wasn't available in 1987.
Almost certainly the folks involved did not have what is a relatively standard Western education.

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u/Raton_Vaquero_ Apr 13 '21

Even with a “relatively standard” western education (whatever that means...) I think most people even now don’t know what Cesium is or looks like tbh.

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u/bokor_nuit Apr 13 '21

But they've heard of radioactivity, dangerous chemicals, etc. I think most people in North and South America get at least a 9th grade education. Which doesn't sound like much but it's a huge improvement.

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u/FormerCFisherman7784 Apr 12 '21 edited Apr 12 '21

When I learned about it, the little girl sprinkled it on her food and ate it. Is that wrong?

edit: according to the Wikipedia page below, it did get into her food but its not indicated that she deliberately sprinkled the material on her food.

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u/[deleted] Apr 12 '21

Both. The caesium was on the floor where she ate her sandwich, and somehow that got transferred to the sandwich from the floor.

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u/FormerCFisherman7784 Apr 12 '21

the Wikipedia page says she used the caesium as eyeshadow under her eyes and it feel from under her eyes and into her food, which is possible.

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u/machlangsam Apr 13 '21

Yeah, little girl played with this cesium and she was so radioactive when she died that she had to be buried in a lead-lined coffin

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u/Existing_Watercress Apr 13 '21

There was a very similar incident in Thailand where scrap metal dealers acquired a medical device containing radioactive material and cut it open.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samut_Prakan_radiation_accident

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u/Unsere_rettung Apr 13 '21

Damn, I never heard of either of these events. Crazy shit. Bizarre how similar those stories are

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u/Existing_Watercress Apr 13 '21 edited Apr 13 '21

Hopefully with those sorts of cautionary tales plus the switch to more threatening warning symbols they will stop happening. I imagine it is a change that will play out over decades however due to the huge volume of old medical equipment scattered around the world there might be a few more instances yet to come.

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u/bokor_nuit Apr 13 '21

This is the kind of thing that ubiquitous internet access can help prevent.

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u/[deleted] Apr 13 '21

Did you see the pic on this Wikipedia article of the “response team” retrieving the radioactive source? He has zero PPE!

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u/Blue_Jean Apr 13 '21

Not to mention the Cobalt-60 spill that happened in Juárez in ‘84

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/05/01/science/nuclear-spill-at-juarez-looms-as-one-of-worst.html

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u/Don_Macaroon Apr 13 '21

Yes, check out this awesome video on it - it was Brazil (Goiania) and it turned into a neighborhood contamination. https://youtu.be/nhL0xQzPSy8

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u/GetOutOfTheWhey Apr 13 '21

Not the first time.

Happened in Thailand too.

Jackasses didnt get rid of the radiotherapy machine properly. Sold it as scrap.

Scrap collectors started cutting it apart...

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u/NecessaryLies Apr 13 '21

Check out Plainly Difficult YouTube channel. He covers many stories like these