Two-thirds of global deaths are caused by unhealthy environment

MORE than 80 per cent of the people living in urban areas are exposed to air quality levels that exceed World Health Organisation (WHO) limits.

According to research conducted by the global organisation, nearly two-thirds of the total global deaths are caused by environmental risk factors, such as air, water and soil pollution.

Following the recent industrial fire in south Durban which raged for three days, concerns and issues have been raised surrounding health impacts, damage to property and a civil emergency plan for the south Durban area.

Speaking at the Earthlife Africa Durban and the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance public meeting at St John the Divine Anglican Church in Glenwood, Dr Shumani Phaswana from the UKZN Department of Occupational and Environmental Health said air pollution effects will not be realized now, however the soot, released in the fire, could contain chemicals that could lead to serious health problems.

“To determine what kind of illness people might suffer from, we need to know the kind of chemicals that they have been exposed to, but what this incident showed us is that government has no plan, making the general public vulnerable,” said Phaswana.

Vanessa Black from Earth Life said for a change it was not just at the south Durban area that had been affected. If it had sat there in the south Durban basin, we would have had many sick people.

“What citizens need to consider is that we are right next to Africa’s largest petroleum cluster and there is no database on what liquids/ fuels are in these industries, making it difficult to pin down the source of the fire. The government-intended expansion of this industrial area, will also lead to increased trucks resulting in more traffic and accidents. There is no evacuation plan from the city,” said Black.

Desmond D’Sa of South Durban Community Environment Alliance, said it was important that all role-players participate in the investigations process and called for more safety inspectors to ensure that legislation is being enforced to prevent more incidents like the warehouse fire in South Coast Road.

“We were informed at a meeting at Settlers Primary in Merebank together with health officials, Bruce Dale and Peter Roberts, that the the air quality monitoring system equipment was not operational and the benzene analyser was not working as they were unable to get spare parts. We are also aware that other equipment regarding the monitoring are under repaire because the equipment is not calibrated, thereby making the data corrupt,” said D’Sa.

Environmental experts who were in attendance said it was unacceptable that there was no early warning siren and public address systems in place in the South Durban Basin. They said the city relied too heavily on commercial radio to communicate information to the public.

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