As U.S. attempted to remove nuclear material from Chile, earthquake struck

[babylonsister]

Rachel's talking about this-first I've heard of this! :wow:


As U.S. attempted to remove nuclear material from Chile, earthquake struck

By David E. Hoffman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 11, 2010

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration was in the process of removing the last highly enriched uranium from Chile when a powerful earthquake struck the country on Feb. 27.


When the shaking began just after 3:34 a.m. on Feb. 27, Andrew Bieniawski woke up with a start in his room on the 15th floor of the Sheraton Hotel in Santiago, Chile. A picture fell off the wall.

He raced to the lobby. He had arrived from the United States just the day before to oversee a delicate operation that the U.S. government and Chile had been quietly setting up for more than a month, and now an earthquake was tearing apart the center of the country. The magnitude-8.8 quake killed 486 people, set off a tsunami, cracked buildings and roads, cut off electricity and phone lines, and spawned dozens of aftershocks.

While the disaster unfolded, Bieniawski and his team from the Energy Department had another worry: They had packed 39.6 pounds of highly enriched uranium, enough to make a nuclear bomb, into a shipping container, ready for a secret evacuation by road to a port and then by sea to the United States.

The quake threw up several new hurdles for the secret mission, and Bieniawski's first concern, he recalled in an interview, was this: Was the container damaged? Grabbing a phone before the lines went dead, he learned that the weapons-grade material was intact. But his team's problems had just begun.

more...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/10/AR2010041002811.html

[John N Morgan]

1. So Obama is using the Sekret Army too? He's a clever one.

[malaise]

2. Fascinating

I'll be happy when the last nuke is destroyed

[HughMoran]

3. That was an interesting segment

It didn't occur to me while I was watching how recent this incident was!