Asbestos News

The discovery of asbestos in a building damaged by fire in the Australian island-state of Tasmania has hampered cleanup efforts.

In April, a fire affected six businesses in Queenstown and caused more than $1.5 million in damages, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Roy Ormerod from Workplace Standards told the news source that the building where the fire began - a mechanical workshop - contained asbestos.

"The whole site would be contaminated because asbestos itself doesn't burn and therefore any cement sheet that was contained in the building would result in a pile of broken fibers lying around the site," he said.

Such fires pose significant health risks as exposure to the naturally occurring mineral can cause a range of serious illnesses including as malignant mesothelioma, asbestosis and lung cancer.

Ormerod said that the presence of asbestos means that the cleanup of the site needs to be handled differently.

"So the whole site would need to be declared as contaminated and therefore the whole site would need to be removed in accordance with the asbestos guidelines," he told the news provider.