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Asbestos, a first-class carcinogen, was detected in several stone blocks installed for landscaping in the apartment complex.



Although the use is already strictly restricted in Korea, reporter Song In-ho reported on what happened and whether the stone dust might be blown by the wind and enter the respiratory tract.



<Reporter>  



This is an apartment complex in Incheon, completed in 2013.



Stone blocks placed just for landscaping are laid out in the grass.



At first glance, it looks like a volcanic stone, but there are radial patterns embedded in it.



It is asbestos. 



[Environmental Health Citizens' Organization Official: This is also a (asbestos) blooming.

It also bloomed.

This is how (patterns) developed.] As a



result of the Environmental Health Citizen Center's survey, asbestos was detected in all 10 landscape stones sampled from this complex.  



[Ye-Yong Choi/Director of the Environmental Health Citizen Center: If it breaks into tiny nanoparticles like ultrafine dust, it floats in the air and enters the lungs through our respiratory tract and gets stuck in the lungs more easily because the tip is sharp.]



 Asbestos in the remaining 131 landscape stones as well

.

It was suspected of containing.  




[Apartment complex residents: It is amazing that asbestos was detected and that it contained carcinogens. Residents didn't know anything about



it

.] 

Since 2009, the use, manufacture and import of all asbestos products has been completely banned in Korea. 



[Sung-Heon Ham/Professor, Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Gachon University Gil Hospital: Asbestos is a first-class carcinogen when inhaled. Asbestos-related diseases have an incubation period of more than 10 years, which is considerably longer than other diseases.]



Since 2012, Kyung-Suk Cho has strengthened safety management to prevent asbestos from being exposed to the surface.



The construction period of this apartment is October 2013.



Even after the law went into effect, the stone blocks mixed with asbestos were used.



Civic groups reported that stones containing asbestos could have been used as landscaping stones in nearby apartment complexes, so they conducted a thorough investigation of apartments in Songdo, Incheon, and urged the government and local governments to prepare measures. 



(Video editing: Kim Hong-sik, video editing: Park Ki-deok, VJ: Oh Se-gwan)