TEGUCIGALPA (Honduras), April 12: Nuclear detection devices are up and running at ports in Pakistan and Honduras, the first phase of a larger plan to increase the security of shipping containers before they arrive in the US, Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Michael Jackson announced on Wednesday.

Jackson toured Puerto Cortes, on Honduras’ Caribbean coast, and inspected the new devices that are screening containers for nuclear and radiological material.

In a statement, he said the Secure Freight Initiative, announced in December, will be expanded to four other non-US ports – Southhampton, England; Salalah, Oman; Port of Singapore; and the Gamman Terminal at Port Busan, Korea.

“Terrorists and criminals use global shipping networks, and we are deploying multiple layers of advanced technology to counter their tactics,” he said in a statement. “Secure Freight creates a global nuclear detection network with shippers, carriers and foreign allies, to head off the worst possible form of attack, a nuclear or dirty bomb on our soil.”

The testing began April 2 in Puerto Cortes, considered Central America’s main port. It is located 300 kilometres north of Tegucigalpa, the capital.

Tests in Port Qasim, Pakistan, the first port to participate in Secure Freight Initiative, began in March. Data gathered from the scans will be sent almost immediately to US Customs and Border Protection officers stationed at the overseas ports.

The US government is investing about $60 million in the project.

More than 250,000 containers pass through Puerto Cortes each year, carrying $1.8 billion worth of goods from Central America to the United States and Europe.—AP