Authorities in Mexico have issued an alert in several states after thieves snatched potentially deadly radioactive material used for industrial radiography.

The iridium-192, marked X-571, was inside a container when it was stolen on Monday from a truck in Cardenas, a town in southern Tabasco state, the interior ministry said in a statement.

"This source is very dangerous to people if it is removed from its container," the statement said.

The ministry launched an alert for civil protection authorities in the states of Tabasco, Campeche, Chiapas, Oaxaca and Veracruz, as well as the federal police, the navy and the army.

It said that if not handled with proper protection "this source could cause permanent injuries to the person who handles it or who has been in contact with it for a brief time", believed to be only minutes.

"Being close to this quantity of unprotected radioactive material for hours or days could be fatal," the statement warned.

The interior ministry urged people to avoid touching the material if found, establish a 30-metre security perimeter around the source and immediately notify federal authorities of the discovery.

It is the latest case of radioactive material being stolen in Mexico, after thieves took a truck containing a cancer-treating medical device with highly radioactive cobalt-60 near Mexico City in 2013.

They were unaware about the contents of the cargo and when authorities arrested the thieves and recovered the material, the suspects were hospitalised. They all survived.

That theft prompted the International Atomic Energy Agency to issue an alert for "extremely dangerous" material, and the US government to keep tabs on the situation.

More recently, in February, authorities recovered three stolen trucks in central Mexico that had been transporting radioactive material for industrial use.

A similar incident took place in July 2014, also without causing harm to the population.

AFP