It seems it was mostly to the north all over the Northern Cape, followed by Limpopo and Mpumalanga.
Apparently South Africa was the world's second-largest market-economy producer of asbestos from the 1950s to the 1980s and the largest producer of amosite and crocidolite (I had to google those and it appears among asbestos there are a few different types/lengths of fibers).
The big mines all closed around 1992/98, with a complete cessation of all asbestos mining in 2002/3. I found this scanned document from the University of Cape Town that goes into detail on the discovery, mining and a few epidemics as they called them:
https://vula.uct.ac.za/access/content/group/9c29ba04-b1ee-49...
The numbers are crazy, for example in 1931 mill workers (in a sample of 100) only 14% had more than 5 years of service (the single longest having been there for 9 years). "Yet every worker experienced a cough productive of mucoid sputum, 72% suffered dyspnea on exertion and 47% reported loss of weight".
In less than 1 year 36% showed early signs, 9% advanced signs, 45% any abnormal sign.
In 3 years that went up to 55%, 24% and 79% respectively;
and by 5-9 years 36%, 64% and 100%.
Apparently South Africa was the world's second-largest market-economy producer of asbestos from the 1950s to the 1980s and the largest producer of amosite and crocidolite (I had to google those and it appears among asbestos there are a few different types/lengths of fibers).
The big mines all closed around 1992/98, with a complete cessation of all asbestos mining in 2002/3. I found this scanned document from the University of Cape Town that goes into detail on the discovery, mining and a few epidemics as they called them: https://vula.uct.ac.za/access/content/group/9c29ba04-b1ee-49...
The numbers are crazy, for example in 1931 mill workers (in a sample of 100) only 14% had more than 5 years of service (the single longest having been there for 9 years). "Yet every worker experienced a cough productive of mucoid sputum, 72% suffered dyspnea on exertion and 47% reported loss of weight".
In less than 1 year 36% showed early signs, 9% advanced signs, 45% any abnormal sign. In 3 years that went up to 55%, 24% and 79% respectively; and by 5-9 years 36%, 64% and 100%.