200px, Tomb of Eduardo Miño who committed suicide in 2001 in protests to government neglect of Pizarreño's asbestos victims. The Pizarreño asbestos disaster is an ongoing health disaster in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

. Despite the company Pizarreño ceasing to use

asbestos Asbestos () is a naturally occurring fibrous silicate mineral. There are six types, all of which are composed of long and thin fibrous crystals, each fibre being composed of many microscopic "fibrils" that can be released into the atmosphere b ...

in 1998 and the prohibition of asbestos in 2001, its effects continue to be felt. From 1935 to 1998 the company Pizarreño contaminated its neighborhood and its workers' homes with asbestos while producing toxic

building materials Building material is material used for construction. Many naturally occurring substances, such as clay, rocks, sand, wood, and even twigs and leaves, have been used to construct buildings. Apart from naturally occurring materials, many man-ma ...

. The company's eponymous asbestos boards are the most notorious asbestos-rich material the company produced. In 1951 the Pizarreño moved its manufacture plant to Maipú near the road to

Melipilla Melipilla (Mapudungun for "four Pillans") is a Chilean commune and capital city of the province of the same name, located in the Santiago Metropolitan Region southwest of the nation's capital. The commune spans an area of . Demographics Accord ...

in the western periphery of Santiago. In Maipú, the company built Villa Pizarreño in the 1950s, a house complex next to the factory for its workers. Pizarreño's workers had to wash their clothes at home, contributing to the spread of asbestos and further exposing their relatives to the mineral. This situation lasted until 1989, when a system for washing clothes in the workplace was inaugurated. Reportedly, during the

military dictatorship of Chile A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

a trade union leader who was to denounce the company in courts was kidnapped by the National Information Center only to be released six months later without charges.

René Cortázar For his father, the agronomist and researcher, see :es:René Cortázar Sagarminaga, René Cortázar Sagarminaga. René Cortázar (Santiago, February 29, 1952) is a Chilean economist, researcher, academic, and politician of the Christian Democratic ...

has been accused of actively rejecting the enforcement of the Asbestos Convention while he was minister in 1992. Furthermore, Cortázar has been accused by

Raúl Sohr Raúl Sohr (born May 13, 1947, in Temuco) is a Chilean journalist, sociologist and international relations analyst. He studied Universidad de Chile, University of Paris, and earned a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics. At present he works a ...

of acting in tandem with Pizarreño in suppressing journalistic investigations into the asbestos issue while he was director of

Televisión Nacional de Chile Televisión Nacional de Chile (TVN) is a Chilean public service broadcaster. It was founded by order of President Eduardo Frei Montalva and it was launched nationwide on 18 September 1969. Since then, the company has been reorganized on several ...

from 1995 to 2000. In 1996 the minister of housing Edmundo Hermosilla continued to support the use of asbestos in housing reportedly claiming that regulation of asbestos would make housing projects for the poor more expensive and that this would be a "luxury" Chile could not afford. Hermosilla would also have been concerned about the possibility of mass media reporting on the issue would usher a "

psychosis Psychosis is a condition of the mind that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not real. Symptoms may include delusions and hallucinations, among other features. Additional symptoms are incoherent speech and behavior ...

like in Europe". As result of the disaster since 2001 various types of asbestos and uses of asbestos have been forbidden by law, in what is an effective ban on asbestos. The ban on asbestos, however, notoriously came after Pizarreño voluntarily stopped use it in its products in 1998.

Notable victims

*Eduardo Miño. He committed suicide by

self-immolation The term self-immolation broadly refers to acts of altruistic suicide, otherwise the giving up of one's body in an act of sacrifice. However, it most often refers specifically to autocremation, the act of sacrificing oneself by setting oneself o ...

in November 2001 in protest of the neglect of asbestos victims like himself and others. *Julieta Bernal Trigo. She died in May 2016 of

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissue (biology), tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from tran ...

. She was exposed by her proximity to the Pizarreño industry and washing her father's, who worked in Pizarreño, clothes. In 2018 a court ordered Pizarreño pay 125 million Chilean pesos in indemnity to her surviving family. *Manuela del Carmen Marín Cabello. She died in July 2012. She was exposed to asbestos coming both from the general environment near her house and from the clothes of her husband who worked in Pizarreño. In 2017 courts ruled Pizarreño to pay 80 million Chilean pesos as indemnity to her sons. *Patricia Gálvez. As a child she lived in the asbestos-ridden environment next to Pizarreño and played at times in asbestos dunes near her house. As of 2019 she was suffering from pleural mesothelioma, resulting from asbestos exposure. Together with three other women adversely affected by asbestos she has sued Etex Group, the owner of Pizarreño.

Notes

References

{{coord missing, Chile Asbestos disasters Health disasters in Chile Corporate scandals Journalistic scandals Environmental controversies History of Santiago, Chile Scandals in Chile Man-made disasters in Chile