After a fire broke out at the former Port Kembla public school in New South Wales, it has been decided that demolition work will commence in an effort to make the site safer. A major concern at the site is asbestos exposure as some particles fell on the ground in front of the building after it was badly damaged by the fire on 3 January 2013.
The owner of the building will be using air monitors and wetting down the site to reduce the health risks associated with asbestos. They have also confirmed that they will be using all the recognised safety procedures for dealing with this type of asbestos problem and that there shouldn’t be any major issues.
A long reach excavator is going to be used to bring down the building but this will only be done once all the asbestos on the site is collected in buckets. All these safety measures are important because even minimal exposure to asbestos can lead to an individual contracting an asbestos related disease such as mesothelioma.
New South Wales has seen many compensation cases where a person has been diagnosed with mesothelioma after relatively short exposure to asbestos.
