Australia's Secret Chernobyl — Transcript

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1. 0:04This is Wittenoom.
2. 0:08It's a place in Northwestern Australia
3. 0:11in the middle of the outback.
4. 0:14Once, Wittenoom was the largest city in the region.
5. 0:18Today, the houses are empty.
6. 0:21On paper, this town no longer exists.
7. 0:24The Australian government has removed it from official maps.
8. 0:29The soil,
9. 0:30the bushes,
10. 0:31and even the dust in the air
11. 0:33are highly carcinogenic.
12. 0:35Every breath
13. 0:36can be toxic.
14. 0:38Wittenoom is Australia's Chernobyl.
15. 0:44Except that it’s not radiation that makes this place so dangerous.
16. 0:49What happened here?
17. 0:57Places like Chernobyl and Wittenoom show us
18. 1:00how fragile our relationship with our environment can be.
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39. 1:56It all starts almost 100 years ago, with a mine.
40. 2:02In the mid-1930s,
41. 2:03a small company begins to mine a blue mineral
42. 2:06in these two gorges.
43. 2:09In 1943, a larger corporation called CSR takes over the operation.
44. 2:15The company wants to increase production.
45. 2:17In 1947, with the support of the Western Australian Government,
46. 2:21CSR establishes a worker settlement 10 kilometres from the mine.
47. 2:26Wittenoom is born.
48. 2:28It’s a typical town with everything you'd expect:
49. 2:31a school, a hotel, a hospital,
50. 2:34a post office, a bakery.
51. 2:38The town grows rapidly.
52. 2:44At the time many people flock to the Northwest of Australia
53. 2:47in search of employment.
54. 2:50By the 1950s, 20,000 people live in Wittenoom.
55. 2:55The blue mineral in the gorges is in high demand.
56. 2:58Within a decade 161.000 tonnes are extracted.
57. 3:03The mine is Australia’s only supply.
58. 3:06The fine grained tailings of the mine are put in these dumps close by.
59. 3:11But the inhabitants are smart.
60. 3:14It’s a waste if the tailings are just left lying around.
61. 3:17They use the residues for constructing roads and buildings or as insulation.
62. 3:23The fine blue granules are excellent for mitigating
63. 3:26the extreme heat of the outback -
64. 3:29the people spread them on the ground,
65. 3:31on the sidewalk,
66. 3:32around the houses,
67. 3:33on the schoolyard,
68. 3:34and on playgrounds.
69. 3:38But there’s a problem.
70. 3:40This mineral
71. 3:41is asbestos.
72. 3:43Blue asbestos,
73. 3:45the most toxic kind.
74. 3:53Asbestos gets into the lung
75. 3:54when dust containing microscopic fibres of the mineral
76. 3:58is being inhaled.
77. 3:59The asbestos particles are sharp,
78. 4:01so they damage the pleura.
79. 4:03That’s the protective tissue of the lung.
80. 4:06Prolonged exposure scars the organ and completely reks it -
81. 4:10the result is shortness of breath,
82. 4:12a persistent, dry cough
83. 4:15and a lot of pain.
84. 4:17This is called asbestosis
85. 4:19and it’s clear asbestos causes it since the 1930s.
86. 4:23Since then there have been attempts in various countries
87. 4:26to regulate the use of the mineral.
88. 4:29Nonetheless after WW2 it’s becoming immensely popular.
89. 4:33Soon asbestos is a staple in construction around the world.
90. 4:37After all, it's strong, cheap, insulating and widely available.
91. 4:42The market is booming.
92. 4:46Kent micronite cigarettes proudly advertise their asbestos filters.
93. 4:51It’s a wild time.
94. 4:59Lobbying organisations across the world
95. 5:02will twist the truth about asbestos in the coming decades,
96. 5:05even as the science is becoming crystal clear.
97. 5:08The concerns of health professionals are largely being ignored.
98. 5:13The same rings tragically true in Wittenoom.
99. 5:22Eric Saint is a flying doctor.
100. 5:24He travels to remote parts of Australia to take care of people.
101. 5:29He visits Wittenoom in 1948,
102. 5:32one year after the town's inception.
103. 5:34He worries about it right away.
104. 5:37He finds the dust concentration in the mine to be extremely dangerous.
105. 5:42He informs the mine management
106. 5:44about the extreme risks of asbestos.
107. 5:47He also shares his concerns with the head of the public health department
108. 5:51in Perth and predicts
109. 5:53“the greatest crop of asbestosis the world has ever seen”.
110. 6:13Nevertheless …
111. 6:15no one takes action.
112. 6:21A few years later.
113. 6:23Dr. Jim McNulty also starts to focus on the health of the workers on-site.
114. 6:42McNulty repeatedly informs CSR about the dangers of asbestos.
115. 6:47The mine management does not respond.
116. 7:03In 1960, Dr. McNulty diagnoses the first case
117. 7:07of a weird, rare cancer in Wittenoom.
118. 7:10The patient had worked in the mine for two years in the late 1940s.
119. 7:15You see: Since the asbestos fibres are so fine and sharp,
120. 7:19particularly the blue ones,
121. 7:21they don't just damage the pleura
122. 7:23- they get stuck in it,
123. 7:25often forever.
124. 7:26They irritate the tissue and cause mutations.
125. 7:29This leads to mesothelioma,
126. 7:31an untreatable form of cancer.
127. 7:34It usually appears with a delay of 20-50 years
128. 7:37after the asbestos has been inhaled.
129. 7:40Within 5 years after McNulty's first mesothelioma patient,
130. 7:44more than 100 additional cases
131. 7:47appear in workers and former employees of Wittenoom.
132. 7:50At the time, that’s more cases
133. 7:52than in all other mines in Western Australia combined.
134. 7:58Throughout all these years,
135. 7:59the town’s residents are not informed
136. 8:02about the dangers of asbestos.
137. 8:04They continue their everyday lives in Wittenoom -
138. 8:08completely unaware -
139. 8:10surrounded by deadly blue dust.
140. 8:19In 1966, CSR finally closes the mines in Wittenoom.
141. 8:24Not because of health risks though, but due to economic reasons.
142. 8:28Many residents leave and the population shrinks rapidly.
143. 8:33In 1978, the government starts to close the town
144. 8:37and urges the remaining residents to leave for their own protection.
145. 8:41At the same time, the health consequences for former miners
146. 8:44and residents of Wittenoom become increasingly apparent.
147. 8:49More than 2,000 of them die from asbestos-related diseases.
148. 8:56The town is not radioactive, like Chernobyl,
149. 9:00but being there for too long is deadly nonetheless.
150. 9:04Today, Western Australia has the highest recorded
151. 9:07mesothelioma mortality rate in the world.
152. 9:11Some former citizens lost almost all of their family -
153. 9:15one slow, agonising death after the other.
154. 9:48In the 80s, CSR begins to lose major lawsuit
155. 9:52against former workers and residents.
156. 9:55Courts establish that “the company knew
157. 9:57that asbestosis and cancer were extremely likely results
158. 10:01of working in conditions such as those they permitted in Wittenoom.”
159. 10:06CSR ends up paying millions of Australian dollars in damages.
160. 10:17In December 2006, Wittenoom finally loses its town status.
161. 10:23The power grid is disconnected.
162. 10:25The town is removed from official maps and road signs.
163. 10:29The blue dust remains.
164. 10:32CSR left behind 3 million tons of asbestos tailings.
165. 10:37They are at least 40 metres high
166. 10:39and are located in the gorges near Wittenoom.
167. 10:43The fibres continue to spread through wind and water.
168. 10:47This is the WAMA - the Wittenoom Asbestos Management Area:
169. 10:53It covers over 46,000 hectares
170. 10:56and is the largest contaminated stretch of land
171. 10:58in the southern hemisphere.
172. 11:02Yet, despite all of this,
173. 11:04some people did not want to leave the town
174. 11:07and their homes.
175. 11:08In 2022, The New York Times visited the last residents.
176. 11:12An Austrian man named Mario Hartmann
177. 11:15and Lorraine Thomas.
178. 11:17Both ignored the government's orders to leave.
179. 11:20Officials had to ultimately escort Thomas out of her house.
180. 11:24Now the last residents are gone,
181. 11:26and the town is being demolished.
182. 11:31But there are still people in Pilbara.
183. 11:35The Banjima are indigenous people
184. 11:37who inhabited the land around Wittenoom
185. 11:40long before the mine was ever set up.
186. 11:43The area has great cultural significance for the Banjima.
187. 11:48This is Maitland Parker, an elder of the Banjima people.
188. 11:52He grew up in the vicinity of Wittenoom
189. 11:54and played in the gorges as a child,
190. 11:57with serious health consequences:
191. 12:13For more than 10 years,
192. 12:15the Banjima people have urged the government to clean up the area.
193. 12:19Already back in 1994 an official report warned the situation would
194. 12:24“only get worse and strongly recommended the asbestos tailings dumps
195. 12:28be cleaned up or stabilised,
196. 12:31and that the road into the gorge be removed.”
197. 12:34But no action was ever taken.
198. 12:37It would be too expensive.
199. 12:39Disposing of all the asbestos could cost
200. 12:41an estimated $100 to $600 million Australian dollars.
201. 12:52Until then the aftermath of Wittenoom continues.
202. 12:56The blue particles continue to be taken up by the wind
203. 12:59that blows through the ruins,
204. 13:01the tailings continue to crumble into the once magnificent gorges,
205. 13:05into river streams.
206. 13:07The sharp fibres are still in the lungs of people
207. 13:10who played on the town's playgrounds
208. 13:12and walked its streets.
209. 13:13A great number of these people
210. 13:16will die
211. 13:17a painful death.