Tepojaco, Mexico: Mexican soldiers have set up a safety perimeter around a cancer-treating device containing dangerous radioactive material that was stolen along with a truck from a petrol station.

The people who stole the truck and removed the device from a steel-reinforced wooden box and left it in a rural area north of Mexico City are probably already dead or dying, the national nuclear safety board said.

Deadly cargo found ... Police secure the area after dangerous radioactive medical material was located near a stolen truck in the town of Hueypoxtla, Mexico. Credit:Reuters

But the danger of contamination is minimal because the area where the device was found is so uninhabited, it added. No evacuations were necessary.

There was no immediate word on who might have stolen the truck. It was on its way to dispose of the disused medical device at a nuclear storage facility.