DEADLY NERVE GAS MISSING AT UTAH ARMY BASE
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1351181/Army-base-lock-deadly-nerve-gas-goes-missing.html
An Army base in Utah was put on emergency lock-down last night after a vial of lethal nerve gas went missing.
Officials at Dugway Proving Grounds in Salt Lake City noticed a vial of VX nerve agent was gone during a routine inventory check.
An anxious search was launched and over 1,200 employees were held at the sprawling 800,000 acre base from 5pm last night. No one was allowed in or out.
Concern: Officials at Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah locked down the military base last night after a vial of deadly XV nerve agent went missing
Armed sentries blocked all entrances into the base where Army Reserves and U.S. National Guard go for training and which is sometimes used a bombing range.
The Army Test and Evaluation Command center conduct training and tests of biological and chemical weapon defenses to protect troops against attacks.
The misplaced vial was finally found on the base at 3am this morning to the great relief of military officials.
The vial contained the equivalent of a quarter teaspoon of the VX nerve gas which is deemed the deadliest agent in the military’s arsenal.
The agent affects the body’s ability to carry messages through the nerves, spreads slowly and remains in place for several weeks.
Blocked: Over 1,200 employees were held inside the sprawling 800,000 acre grounds while military officals traced the deadly nerve gas
‘VX is amber colored, odorless, tastless oily liquid that does not evaporate easily unless temperatures are high’, the base’s statement said.
‘It evaporates very slowly almost like motor oil. People can be exposed through skin contact (the most toxic way), eye contact or inhalation’.
A military spokesman said ‘all personnel are uninjured and safe. The public is safe and well’.
U.S. Army Col. William King said at a news conference today: ‘Early this morning we determined that in fact we had not lost an accountability agent it was just misplaced into a different container that was improperly marked’.
Col. King said it was a ‘serious mishandling’ of the agents and officials are still investigating the matter.
VX was created in 1952 by British scientists and traded to the U.S. a few years later.
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