Exclusive: ‘Dirty’ Nuke Attack in New Delhi?

Family Security Matters ^ | April 15, 2010 | Paul Williams, PhD

[Candor7]

While the White House was engaged in hosting a Nuclear Security Summit in Washington D.C., a major nuclear incident occurred in India that escaped the attention of the international press.

Five people suffering from serious radiological burns were hospitalized in West New Delhi this week from contact with nuclear material in a Delhi scrap market.

The material has been identified as Cobalt-60 which may be used for making a dirty bomb.

Indian police sectioned off the 200 market stores in the thickly populated city of 14 million and sealed nearby establishments within a one-kilometer radius.

Scrap dealer Deepak Jain and his helpers lost consciousness when they came into contact with an irradiated piece of scrap metal. A white fluid oozed out, causing the burns. Jain's hair fell out and within minutes his skin turned black. His workers immediately manifested signs of radiological poisoning, including severe nausea and discoloration of the skin.

With the opening of the summit on Monday came word that Mr. Jain had died and the chance of recovery for the four workers remained slim.

Nuclear scientists from the Baba Atomic Research Center and Narora Atomic Power Plant identified the material and have been working around the clock to locate its source.

German chancellor Angela Merkel asked to talk with President Obama about the dirty bomb terrorist threat when they met on Tuesday.

Cobalt-60 is used in radiotherapy for treating cancer and welding steel.

A 2009 U.S. report recommended monitoring this material along with Caesium-137, Strontium-90 and Plutonium to effectively counter nuclear terrorism.

Unlike a nuclear bomb, a dirty bomb does not involve nuclear fission and can be used like a conventional weapon.

Ahead of the Washington conference, U.S. president Barack Obama called nuclear terror "the single biggest threat to U.S. security, short term, medium and long-term."

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Paul L. Williams is the author of The Day of Islam: The Annihilation of America and the Western World, The Al Qaeda Connection, and other best-selling books. He is a frequent guest on such national news networks as ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, MSNBC, and NPR. Visit his website at http://thelastcrusade.org.

Reader Comments: Submit Your Comment (2)

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Again, where is the major media? Coverage of events such as these should supercede the bombast and hot air that came from President Obama at his nuclear disarmament summit.

posted by : pat hopkins Thursday, April 15, 2010 at 10:44 AM

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If true, this story is huge. It certainly demonstrates the extraodinary danger of loose nuclear material. There needs to be mainstream media all over this story for further investigation. Steven Emerson Executive Director The Investigative Project on Terrorism.

posted by : Steven Emerson Thursday, April 15, 2010 at 07:49 PM

[Diogenesis]

Co60 is penetrating.
An effect in minutes would be at the >2000 cgy level
and would yield CNS effects possibly consistent with
what they say.
The skin effect of blackness (could that be erythema?)
would be consistent or suggest much high delivered dose,
or that additional second material.

[Hardraade]

Scrap dealer Deepak Jain and his helpers lost consciousness when they came into contact with an irradiated piece of scrap metal

Test

[FReepaholic]

...You are a perfect terrorist foil...

Drat, you found me out. Hey, at least I'm perfect at something.

[Nuc1]

Probably a medical or gamma radiography source. Misplaced or tossed by people who should know better. Based upon the write up the other folks involved are dead ducks. Sad Co60 has a high energy gamma ray.

[Nuc1]

I think the point is it doesn’t appear to be someone building a dirty bomb. Further we don’t know with certainty that it was a cobalt source. Rapid blackenbing of skin would require a very intense source. Thousands perhaps tens of thousands of curies. Unless they played around with it for some time...I suspect there is more to this than we have been told.

[Candor7]

TEst exacfly, on a bunch of low aste junk yard workers.
There us every possibility this was no accident. The “passive” nature of the irradiation makes everyone assume it was it an attack. It should be an assumed attack until proven otherwise.

[Candor7]

Unless they played around with it for some time...>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

This was said to be a one off incident. Taking only a matter of minutes.

[Candor7]

To keep people safe, the response should be assumed attack until provenm otherwise. A guy like you in the right admin position with these devices or irradiated materials could get thousands killed in short order.I guess there is sommething that sepeartes the men from the boys. LOL.

Look,learn, and remember.

[FReepaholic]

...I guess there is sommething that sepeartes the men from the boys...

Yeah, like spelling.

[Candor7]

I do my best on the typong, I cam spell fine. But as a double amputee, I have to type with my toes.

[Nuc1]

Blackened skin in minutes? Something is going on here. Even at 2000 Rem per hour, such as a pipe inspection source, a five minute exposure would only yield 166.7 Rem. At ten minutes, twice that. While that exposure would not be good for you, unless you were sickly you would easily survive. The folks in the plant at Chernobyl only got tanned skin and they were standing on a floor covered with burned fuel pellets. Perhaps an industrial sterilization source? Say 50,000 Rem/hr? That would do it but how many sources at that activity level exist in the world in private hands? An inadvertent critically could do this but I think that unlikely. Maybe I am wrong about that inadvertent criticality. People w/o education and proper instrumentation could easily, with the right material, assemble critical mass. It was done in Japan some time ago at a fuel plant. Something more is going on here than this article suggests.

[Candor7]

I agree, There was metion of a substance that the scientists had identified but would not report what it was toi the news media in India. It must have been very powerful stuff, maybe a little bit of raw plutonium casing or something.