America Inspects Everyone for Radioactive Materials When Entering the Country

Inspections for radioactive materials for everyone entering the USA have started from March 1st.

The US media reported that the US Customs Office had previously conducted these types of inspection only for people over land routes at border checkpoints since 9.11; however, from Saturday, it expanded inspections for everyone entering the country through all routes, which would be as many as 500,000 people a day.

If a person carrying radioactive material passes a customs inspector, who is wearing a portable detector on their waist, an alarm will sound, and the density of the radioactive material will be indicated on the detector.

“We are doing this to increase the inspection capability against radioactive materials such as ‘dirty bombs’ or raw materials,” the Head of the US Customs Office said, as reported in the New York Times.

The officer added that in order to do that, it increased already distributed 4,000 portable detectors to 7,000. The US Government is planning to furnish all 18,000 employees dealing with formalities for entry such as customs inspectors, immigration officers, and agricultural officers with portable detectors by the middle of next year.

The US Customs Office official also stated that it decided to inspect all trucks crossing the border, and would partially begin inspections on air or shipping freight and expand inspections to all freight within a year.

Kwan-Hee Hong konihong@donga.com