World
Think tank warns of U.S. port security
Long Beach, Calif. | August 22, 2006 12:01:13 AM IST
The Rand Corporation security think tank has issued a warning of how vulnerable U.S. ports are to a nuclear terror attack in cargo containers. The group used Long Beach, Calif., as a working scenario, and issued grim statistics if a bomb the same strength used on Hiroshima, Japan, were to be detonated there, CBS reported. Sixty-thousand people probably would be killed in the immediacy of the blast or would die from severe radiation sickness, Rand's Michael Wermuth said. The group said some 200,000 people could be exposed to deadly radiation while as many as 3 million southern Californians would be forced to relocate. Wermuth said the group was not suggesting such an attack was imminent but rather to get people thinking about what will happen in the days, weeks, even years after. Beside the loss in human life, Rand estimated the initial cost of a nuclear port attack could reach $1 trillion, more than 10 times the cost of the attacks on Washington and New York on Sept. 11, 2001. (UPI)
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