Authorities in Kazakhstan are on high alert after a container holding the highly radioactive and dangerous substance caesium-137 disappeared in the west of the country, police said Tuesday. A police spokesman for the Mangistau region said the material - used for medical purposes and also a by-product of nuclear explosions and reactors - appeared to have fallen off a vehicle transporting it.
"The container with the radioactive isotope caesium-137 has not been found so far," police spokesman Azamat Sarsenbayev told AFP, adding that authorities discovered it had gone missing last Wednesday.