Radioactivity Victims Total 6 After Mexican Cobal Truck Theft, Authorities Say

The number of people hospitalized due to symptoms consistent with radiation sickness in the state of Mexico has risen to at least six, according to Mexican state news agency Notimex. By Friday afternoon, five adults and one young man of 16 had been checked into the General Hospital in Pachuca, Hidalgo, after suffering symptoms of radioactivity, said José Antonio Copca, a sub-secretary in the local public health department. The news comes days after a truck carrying cobalt-60, a substance which is highly radioactive and is used in limited quantities for radiation therapy in hospitals, was stolen at a gas station while on its way to a chemical storage facility. Cobalt-60 can cause serious harm to those in contact with it in a matter of just minutes.

Copca told the news agency that the six victims appear to have made contact with the radioactive substance about 12 hours after the truck which transported the equipment was stolen on Dec. 2. The armored truck had left the city of Tijuana on Nov. 28, but before it could reach the facility to dispose of its cargo, the driver stopped at a gas station to rest, where he said he was assaulted and forced to climb out of the vehicle. The vehicle was later recovered along with the container holding the cobalt by authorities in a field; the thieves had removed the cobalt-60 from its protective casing but did not appear to have broken the pellet's encasing, and no radioactive contamination has been reported.

The victims, who according to Copca are residents of the town of San Bartolo Cualtlalpan, in the state of Mexico, are under medical supervision as well as the supervision of the federal police. Police had told media shortly after the truck was recovered that they would be waiting for the individuals to appear at area hospitals with signs of radiation poisoning. The field where the material was recovered not far from two pre-schools, including a kindergarten which is reportedly named after Marie Curie, a pioneering scientist in the fiield of radioactivity.

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