Toxic asbestos dust after earthquake in Turkey

Every civilized country has banned the use of asbestos and have taken steps to removed it from existing structures. Not Turkey.

And we all know that asbestos is at its most dangerous when it's dry and broken down in very small particles. Dust.

In the wake of the earthquake that rocked Turkey's southern province of Hatay on February 6, 2023, a thick cloud of dust blanketed the landscape. Unbeknownst to the locals, each breath they took was potentially laced with a silent menace: asbestos.

When the earthquake struck it killed over 53,000 people and displaced millions of people across 11 provinces. According to the World Bank, more than 800,000 buildings were either damaged, demolished, or are now in the process of being demolished.

Many of these structures 'predate the asbestos ban'. Despite persistent warnings regarding the serious public health hazards stemming from unregulated demolition, debris removal, and waste disposal practices in the province, the authorities seemed to ignore the alarms raised.

“We have determined that there is no asbestos in the air,” the then-deputy minister of environment reassured the public a few months after the quake. “Our citizens in the earthquake zone can rest assured; we are working very carefully on asbestos.”

However, farmers in the affected areas discovered that much of their crops were grew poorly in the areas where there was a lot of asbestos.

“The current weather is both cold and sunny. These are perfect conditions, but the plant is constantly shrinking. After growing to a certain point, it starts to dissolve into the soil again. We couldn’t understand why this was happening,” explained a farmer who grew rocket, peppers, herbs and other seasonal vegetables..

No research or tests have been conducted on her crops, so farmers can only guess the cause of the odd growth cycle, though they think the nearby asbestos mound might be part of the reason.

About 100 meters from her field, rubble from collapsed buildings had been dumped and largely forgotten by the authorities. The mound remained an open dump site, often blowing dust onto her lot, before it was eventually covered with large sheets of fabric.

“We were exposed to a lot of dust. We were unable to clean [the crops], because as soon as we cleaned everything, it started to get dirty again,” the farmer said.