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Radiological attack...
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
If a "dirty bomb" were to be set off in New York, every building in Manhattan and for miles around might have to be demolished, concludes one of the United States' most distinguished scientific bodies.
The Federation of American Scientists, which cites 52 Nobel prizewinners among its sponsors, says a bomb made using just one piece of radioactive cobalt could make the city uninhabitable for decades, and seriously contaminate one thousand square kilometres of the states of New Jersey, Connecticut and New York.
Three months ago – long before last week's debacle was even a glimmer in Attorney General John Ashcroft's eye – the federation's president, Dr Henry Kelly, warned the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations that the "threat of a malicious radiological attack in the US" was "credible".
He presented the results of a study – carried out by the federation and Princeton University – into what might happen if a bomb containing just a single "pencil" of intensely radioactive cobalt-60 was exploded at the southern tip of Manhattan on a calm day with a slight south-westerly breeze. Plants used to disinfect food by irradiation often contain hundreds of these "pencils", each just a foot long and an inch in diameter.
The danger, as the report makes clear, is not that the bomb would immediately kill people, although deaths would probably result from the force of the explosion. The real threat would come from long-term radioactive contamination, causing hundreds of thousands of fatalities from cancer over decades.
The investigation concluded that Wall Street, Greenwich Village, Times Square, and the swathe of New York stretching up to Central Park that contains most of its skyscrapers would become as contaminated as the no-go area permanently established around Chernobyl. One in 10 people who continued to live in a 300-block area downwind from the bomb would develop cancer. And a huge area stretching 70 miles downwind would be so badly affected that, under US government rules, it would have to be evacuated and the buildings decontaminated or destroyed. In practice, the study says, "demolition may be the only practical solution".
Could it happen? There would probably, as the federation points out, be little difficulty in finding radioactive material. Food-irradiation facilities are poorly guarded – and the world is awash with similar, or even more dangerous, radioactive sources used in industry, medicine and university laboratories. Some two million sites in the US alone are licensed to use radioactive materials, and the government admits that 1,500 sources have gone missing over the past five years. And last year President Bush cut the budget for protecting nuclear waste – and weapons – by 93 per cent.
It would be much harder, says the nuclear consultant John Large, to explode the bomb so that radiation was widely dispersed. The radioactive material would have to be heavily shielded if any terrorist trying to make or use the bomb were not to die within minutes; an X-ray machine typically contains a radioactive source the size of a cod liver oil pill inside shielding as big as a coffee jar.
A successful bomb would have to be designed with great sophistication, first to break open the "coffee jar", then to gradually heat the radioactive source so that it vaporised, and finally to scatter it to the winds.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=305800
The Federation of American Scientists, which cites 52 Nobel prizewinners among its sponsors, says a bomb made using just one piece of radioactive cobalt could make the city uninhabitable for decades, and seriously contaminate one thousand square kilometres of the states of New Jersey, Connecticut and New York.
Three months ago – long before last week's debacle was even a glimmer in Attorney General John Ashcroft's eye – the federation's president, Dr Henry Kelly, warned the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations that the "threat of a malicious radiological attack in the US" was "credible".
He presented the results of a study – carried out by the federation and Princeton University – into what might happen if a bomb containing just a single "pencil" of intensely radioactive cobalt-60 was exploded at the southern tip of Manhattan on a calm day with a slight south-westerly breeze. Plants used to disinfect food by irradiation often contain hundreds of these "pencils", each just a foot long and an inch in diameter.
The danger, as the report makes clear, is not that the bomb would immediately kill people, although deaths would probably result from the force of the explosion. The real threat would come from long-term radioactive contamination, causing hundreds of thousands of fatalities from cancer over decades.
The investigation concluded that Wall Street, Greenwich Village, Times Square, and the swathe of New York stretching up to Central Park that contains most of its skyscrapers would become as contaminated as the no-go area permanently established around Chernobyl. One in 10 people who continued to live in a 300-block area downwind from the bomb would develop cancer. And a huge area stretching 70 miles downwind would be so badly affected that, under US government rules, it would have to be evacuated and the buildings decontaminated or destroyed. In practice, the study says, "demolition may be the only practical solution".
Could it happen? There would probably, as the federation points out, be little difficulty in finding radioactive material. Food-irradiation facilities are poorly guarded – and the world is awash with similar, or even more dangerous, radioactive sources used in industry, medicine and university laboratories. Some two million sites in the US alone are licensed to use radioactive materials, and the government admits that 1,500 sources have gone missing over the past five years. And last year President Bush cut the budget for protecting nuclear waste – and weapons – by 93 per cent.
It would be much harder, says the nuclear consultant John Large, to explode the bomb so that radiation was widely dispersed. The radioactive material would have to be heavily shielded if any terrorist trying to make or use the bomb were not to die within minutes; an X-ray machine typically contains a radioactive source the size of a cod liver oil pill inside shielding as big as a coffee jar.
A successful bomb would have to be designed with great sophistication, first to break open the "coffee jar", then to gradually heat the radioactive source so that it vaporised, and finally to scatter it to the winds.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=305800
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Comments
Are you certain that was not Glen Ford?
One might just as well get their comprehension of Brit society from watching A Clockwork Orange. :eek:
Movies are made to make money, not to portray reality...
Thought I might use a Brit source, rather than a US source, so that the "sensational justification" card could not be played...
The cops would go home...hasmat teams might hold fast with their equipment if they ad a fair picture of what had happened and where...most folks would simply try to get out of town and away from the 'danger' of radiation of any kind.
A relatively small amount of radioactive material in a home made A-bomb simulator would acomplish wonders in the lexicon of the terrorist.
The problem facing authorities is that they HAVE to announce the presence of radioactive material...if they don't individules with 'detectors' would be all over it with their radios and telephones, etc. Which would only make things worse.
If they pull off an EMP bomb with the dirty bomb there would be pandemonium...!
:eek:
Yes, when compared to other things that the terrorists might do. I'd rather them detonate a dirty bomb, with the potential to kill a few thousand, than a virus or nuke that would kill tens of thousands.
There was a small one off tv show done here a few months ago, in the style of a news bulletin about what would happen if 10 people in New York were infected with small pox.
The results were almost total economic collapse in many of the countries around the world. Within several days it would have reached Britain, and Europe, and then exponentially around the world as people who are unaware they have the disease go on holiday/buisness e.t.c.
Deaths in the UK would exceed 120,000, the USA over 1 million. Worldwide deaths would exceed 60 million, with the disease being declared a pandemic after 70 days. Hospitals would be inundated with people with the disease, and people who think they have the disease. Large numbers of hospital, police and other emergency personnel would contract the disease before anyone knew what was going on. LArge scale rioting would occur, and within a few weeks army personnel would be needed to replace the police and hospital staff who have died or fled, for "not wanting to die for the amount of money they get paid" according to Diesel
This tv programme could have been a load of bollocks, however there were a large number of scientific institutions from the UK and USA who helped them with the research, as well as some unofficial government help so the makers would know a country's reaction and contigency plans.
What I'm getting at, a dirty bomb is going to cause serious damage, but like you said it is too difficult for the terrorists to pull off without dying from radiation exposure and other reasons. it is a lot easier for an unnamed man to walk through wall street, bump into 10 people, then slump into the shadows and kill himself so his body is never found.
I think you'll find the actor playing the president was Henry Fonda -- I know, I have the film on tape.
(You say the original -- there's a remake?)
And the no-recall was real. In the case of the RAF, there was no possibility of recall once the wheels of the aircraft left the runway. All the way to the USSR, chaps.
To be honest, I haven't seen the movie in more than 20 years... :rolleyes:
Yes there is a remake currently being shown on Sky. That's how I came to know the film, although I only watched a few minutes because I had to go out. George Clooney plays the bomber pilot and there are a few other known faces. I kept in mind to watch the movie and then the other day I came across the original (I hadn't known until then that the modern version was a remake). In any case, the new version seems like a shot-by-shot clone, and the original was fantastic.