Four canisters of the deadly nerve gas sarin were discovered at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Colorado. The canisters, each the about the size of a grapefruit, were found in the same scrap pile where six sarin containers were found last fall. These were placed in an a special chamber and destroyed by remote-controlled bombs in January and February.
Officials don?t yet know if the newly-discovered canisters are M-139 bomblets, like the ones found earlier. Each M-139 contains 1.3 pounds of sarin that, when detonated, can kill people up to 900 feet away. The canisters were designed to be delivered as part of a cluster bomb.
Sarin paralyzes the lungs and other vital organs and one drop can kill an adult in an hour. The nerve gas was used in a Tokyo subway attack in 1995 that killed 12 people, and is being investigated as a possible cause of Gulf War Syndrome among veterans.
The Army manufactured sarin from 1953 to 1957 at the site where the canisters were found, and Shell later manufactured pesticides there. Officials don?t know how the bomblets ended up in the debris. Shell, along with state and federal agencies, are cleaning up the 27-square-mile arsenal northeast of Denver to turn it into a wildlife refuge.
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