Madrid City Council accepted the calls by the labour unions to conduct a study in the tunnels of the city to document the asbestos usage. This comes after 3,500 fiber cement panels were detected in the Azca tunnels.

Study will be conducted in July. If asbestos is discovered, then the occupational safety protocols of the workers responsible for the maintenance of the tunnels will be adopted accordingly.

Union says this study should have been made years ago. They say there are workers who worked on the structures for more than 18 years already. Asbestos will cause cancer, among other diseases but it will take a very long time to do so, between 15 and 40 years. This makes it difficult later to associate it with a particular employment period. In Spain, use of fiber cement with asbestos is forbidden since 2002.

http://www.teinteresa.es/espana/Ayuntamiento-Madrid-compromete-realizar-detectar_0_2480751903.html