In the city of Vaihingen an der Enz in southwestern Germany, two men searching for Easter eggs discovered a white plastic bottle with a red cap labeled "polonium-210," a highly dangerous radioactive substance.

After the find was reported, 138 emergency service personnel and 41 units of equipment, including radiation protection specialists in special suits, arrived at the scene. An employee from a nuclear power plant also participated in the operation. The area around the discovery site was completely cordoned off.

Initially, it was unclear whether the labeling matched the bottle's contents. However, fire service representatives stated that the marking appeared official and neat, not handwritten. Additionally, the small container weighing about 200 grams seemed relatively heavy to specialists, which could correspond to the properties of polonium-210.

Despite this, initial radiation measurements did not detect any radioactive emission near the bottle. The container was seized by the Ministry of the Environment of the federal state of Baden-Württemberg. The authority plans to open the container, analyze its contents, and, if necessary, perform deactivation and safe disposal.

Polonium-210 is an extremely toxic radioactive substance that gained widespread notoriety after the 2006 murder of former Russian intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko in London, where it was mixed into his tea, leading to his death. Previously, a number of experts noted that the production of polonium-210 is limited and requires complex technologies available to only a few countries.

Source: kun.uz