Radioactive device goes missing in Malaysia, prompting security fears

August 22, 2018 by Joseph Fitsanakis

A highly radioactive device used by an energy company has gone missing in Malaysia, sparking a nationwide emergency for fear that it might have been stolen by a militant group. According to Malaysia’s Straits Times newspaper, a radioactive dispersal device (RDD), which is used for the industrial radiography of oil and gas supplies, disappeared during transit on August 10. The device, which weighs approximately 50 pounds, or 23 kilograms, disappeared from the back of a company truck in the early hours of the morning while it was being transported by two technicians. They were reportedly transporting the RDD from Kuala Lumpur to Seremban, an industrial town with a population of approximately 600,000, located 40 miles south of the Malaysian capital.

The technicians told the police that they placed the RDD onto the back of a company truck for the routine transport, at approximately 2:00 a.m. Upon arriving in Seremban at 3:00 a.m. that night, they realized that the device had “simply disappeared” from the truck. The Straits Times said that both men were immediately arrested, but were released last Friday, August 17, after the authorities determined that they were not implicated in sabotaging or stealing the radioactive device. On Monday, August 20, the Reuters news agency contacted Mazlan Mansor, police chief of Selangor, the federal province that includes both Kuala Lumpur and Seremban. He told the news agency that “yes, there is a report and we are investigating”. However, he refused to elaborate on the missing RDD, according to Reuters.

A major question regarding the missing device concerns the amount of iridium that is inside it. Iridium is a radioactive substance that is used for the non-destructive testing (known as industrial radiography) of oil and gas supplies. Some experts have expressed concerns that the radioactive substance inside the missing RDD could be combined with conventional explosives and be used as a ‘dirty bomb’ in order to contaminate a highly populated area with radiation. The New Straits Times quoted an unnamed official at Malaysia’s Atomic Energy Licensing Board as saying that the RDD “cannot fall into the wrong hands, as the consequences can be deadly”.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 22 July 2018 | Research credit: A.G.B. | Permalink