Death knows the small town of Prieska all toowell. A poisonous legacy of South Africa's years as a global blue asbestos hub,the Grim Reaper has snaked through here for decades, wiping out families andstriking down neighbours with deadly precision. "In most of the houses inour street, there is someone who has died of asbestosis or mesothelioma,"said Chris Julius, 58, who was diagnosed with asbestos cancer three monthsafter his mother-in-law passed away next door.
A former teacher, Julius never worked at the town's mill orin the nearby hills where mining started in the late 1800s along rich depositsknown as the country's "asbestos mountains" that run along the vastNorthern Cape. But he has mesothelioma, an aggressive lung cancer whosediagnosis is a death sentence. "It felt like I was going to the electricchair," said Julius, who lives 100 metres from where the now-demolishedmill once spat dust over the town.
Environmental scientist Rob Jones estimates asbestosexposure is killing up to 52 people a year in the Northern Cape, while nearly90 percent of 36 communities he surveyed had one or more sites ranked as severerisk. "This is really a national environmental emergency that should bedealt with. It is analogous to Libby, Montana in the US and Wittenoom,Australia," said Jones, who has studied contamination levels for thestate. Wittenoom was shut down by Australian authorities in 1966 and Libby hasreceived millions of dollars for rehabilitation.
Yet, while South Africa once produced 98 percent of theworld's blue asbestos, the government has yet to act with the same urgency forits dozens of toxic communities. The older generationin Prieska tells of playing obliviously on soft dumps as children,with no warnings from mine bosses or authorities. Documented accounts point tofibres being dusted off fruit, picked from trees. While still possible tostumble across a pile of fibres lying in the open, those days are over. Butasbestos is a patient killer: it can lie dormant for decades.
"Asbestos does not rot; it never goes away on its own.It is only safe when it is completely removed from the potential of humandisturbance," he warned.
