Yikes!
No place like Africa and for that, I am very happy.
This story from
The Guardian:
Missing keys, holes in fence and a single padlock: welcome to Congo's nuclear plant
Amid the market stalls, hawkers and gridlocked cars on the road out of Congo's capital and into the Kinshasa hills there is nothing to mark the way to a nondescript clutch of buildings a few hundred yards down a side street.
The dilapidated concrete compound is protected by little more than a low-slung rusted barbed-wire fence and a rickety gate sealed by a single padlock. It would be easy enough to slip through a hole in the fence but there is no need, as the main entrance to what is supposed to be one of the best guarded sites in Congo is often unmanned.
The armed police assigned to watch the compound were not to be seen at the weekend as visitors wandered the corridors of what is Africa's oldest nuclear reactor facility - and the storage place for dozens of bars of enriched uranium - until finally challenged by a man in a tracksuit who called himself "security".
The International Atomic Energy Agency has long viewed Kinshasa's experimental nuclear reactor as a disaster in the making, either through an accident that releases radiation into the city or because of lax security.
There are now three locks to gain access to the reactor and uranium rods, because years ago the director handed over a set of keys to a stranger that included the only key required to get to the heart of the atomic plant. That carelessness is blamed for the disappearance of two rods of enriched uranium in the late 1970s. One is believed to have turned up in 1998 on its way to the Middle East via the mafia; the other was never found.
But new locks aside, there is little outward recognition of concern by the world's nuclear watchdog and among western governments at the prospect of Kinshasa's reactor catching the attention of terrorists scouring the globe for the right ingredients for a "dirty bomb".
The US - which helped found the reactor because Congo provided the uranium used in the atom bombs dropped on Japan - cut off the supply of spare parts to the reactor nearly 20 years ago due to the plant's decline. Washington has recently tried to persuade Congo to hand over the 98 bars of enriched uranium stored in triangular rods about 60cm (2ft) long and kept submerged in a circular pool underneath a padlocked metal grate or in the reactor.
But Congo's nuclear scientists hope to fire up the reactor again so that it can be put to a range of uses from medical research to mine prospecting, eight years after it was placed on standby because of war, poor maintenance and lax security.
At least the facility has entered the computer age. Little more than a decade ago it didn't have phones and technicians worked on blackboards.
And to think that Congo is one of the more advanced nations in that continent...
Posted by DaveH at November 25, 2006 10:43 PM