'Dirty bomb' fears over world's most insecure N-facility

Vienna: More than two tonnes of radioactive material stored in a rundown research facility in Serbia could be an easy target for terrorists seeking to build a "dirty" bomb, according the UN's nuclear watchdog.

Nuclear inspectors have branded the lightly-guarded store of highly enriched uranium, from a communist-era reactor which closed 22 years ago, the world's most dangerous disused nuclear site because of the potency of the material present, and because some is prone to leaking.

The outdated storage facility is on a 48-acre site at the Institute of Nuclear Sciences in Vinca, 16 km outside the capital, Belgrade, surrounded by a rusty barbed-wire fence and secured only by a small number of armed guards.

Michael Durst, the special programme manager at the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the Vinca site topped the global priority list of unsecured uranium sources because it combined the threats of nuclear proliferation and environmental disaster.

He said: "Vinca is unique in the amount of uranium stored within its facility at least 2.5 metric tonnes and the fact that about 30 per cent of it is leaking. It would be easily accessible to an organised group.

"There are other sites in Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, as well as elsewhere in the world, but the amount of nuclear material, the accessibility and the leakage makes Vinca the most dangerous. It requires immediate action.''

Much of the uranium is said by officials to be stored in a 75ft pool, filled with murky water, in the institute's reactor building.

Other nuclear material stored at the site includes plutonium and highly radioactive spent fuel by-products.

This week, the IAEA will appeal to international donors for funds to pay for decommissioning the site and moving the most dangerous material to Russia for disposal.

A joint project by the IAEA, the Vinca institute and the Serbian authorities to secure the material has stalled for lack of funds. "The Vinca staff are highly professional and very co-operative,'' said Durst, "But the budgets of the institute, and of the whole country, are very limited. They are keeping the whole thing together with gum and tape.''

The institute was founded in what was communist Yugoslavia in 1948, with the help of Soviet scientists. Its nuclear reactor was shut down in 1984, but there are still more than 800 workers at the site, 400 of them scientific staff.

IAEA officials are concerned that low-paid employees might be tempted to sell some of the material themselves, or allow terrorists access to it. Durst said: "It would need a well-organised operation to transport it without endangering the lives of those involved. But if someone were willing to risk their life, it could be done.'' Obrad Sotic, a former operations manager at the site, said: "For terrorists ready to commit suicide it wouldn't be a problem to steal a lot of these fuel elements, which are very light, and use them as a dirty bomb.''

Thousands of spent fuel rods, made of the highly radioactive mixture of uranium and plutonium, are stored at the site. While making a nuclear bomb out of the material would be a complex process, requiring special facilities and expertise, a single fuel rod tied to conventional explosives would be enough to create a dirty bomb, which would scatter radioactive debris across a wide area.

Disposal

The IAEA estimates that the cost of disposing of the nuclear material could be as much as £50 million (Dh350 million). The material would be taken to a Russian disposal facility as, according to international agreements, spent nuclear fuel is disposed of in its country of origin, in this case the former Soviet Union.

More than 100lb of highly enriched uranium fuel has previously been removed from Vinca by the IAEA and the American Russian and Serbian governments. It was transported to a disposal facility near Dimitrovgrad, in Russia.