UN agency issues 鈥榙irty bomb鈥 warning
Print Edition
THE head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency yesterday warned of the threat of terrorists getting their hands on radioactive material to make “dirty” bombs.
Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said all countries should secure material that extremists could use to make such devices.
“Nuclear security is a longstanding and real issue. This is a real threat in all countries where nuclear material is available to terrorists,” he said during a visit to the Philippines for an atomic energy conference.
“If nuclear material falls into the hands of terrorists, that can be used for dirty bombs,” he said, referring to devices that use explosives to spread radioactive material over a wide area to poison people.
Such devices, which are much easier to make than an atomic bomb, could cause widespread panic if unleashed, he said.
While governments have the main responsibility to secure the materials, the IAEA can help establish guidelines to guard them, according to Amano.
This might include training customs and border guards on how to detect such materials, and helping governments procure detectors and similar equipment.
The Vienna-based IAEA is already maintaining a database to “analyze and establish a trend” that might identify possible threats, he said.
Despite the danger, Amano said that nuclear energy has many benefits beyond power generation, such as applications in medicine, water management and even agriculture.
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