A oncecelebrated miracle material, asbestos is sturdy, able to withstand heat and corrosion, cheap and easy to use. It was widely used in the construction of homes, ships and industrial sites. But asbestos is also carcinogenic. More than 250,000 people worldwide die every year following contact with asbestos. And despite being banned in many countries, it is still found everywhere with fatal consequences. A huge cloud of dust blankets the city of hatay in southern turkey. Much of the city was devastated by an earthquake in february now, beneath the rubble, another danger is emerging. Asbestos. Our exclusive investigation reveals the extent of the asbestos contamination in hatay. Dw reporters from the turkish and environment departments invited an expert team from the countrys chamber of environmental engineers to the region. Here, they collected 45 dust samples at different locations. The results point to a disaster that could affect millions of people. Anyone who has been in hatay is at risk of being exposed to asbestos. Turkish Authorities Say the amount of asbestos in the region is below dangerous levels. But according to the World Health Organization a single asbestos fiber, when inhaled, can lead to lung cancer. Turkey and around 70 other countries have banned the sale of asbestos products, but its legacy is still around us. Because the existing Asbestos Materials used in the buildings and elsewhere before the bans are like a ticking bomb. In the aftermath of the earthquake more than 100,000 thousand buildings collapsed. Many contained Asbestos Materials. And now they are part of the dust. Utku firat is an expert from turkeys chamber of environmental engineers. Hell be helping the dw reporters collect dust samples from hatay. The first one will be a control sample from the crews car. The idea behind that is to see if cars in the earthquake region collect and transport dust contaminated with asbestos. The crew washed the car before taking a sample. Our journey starts in gaziantep, 200 kms away from hatay where the local airport was damaged in the earthquake. Seven months after the disaster, the city still resembles a war zone. The people of hatay try their best to live a normal life. But theyre worried about the dust. Directly behind us is a rubble site. It fills our lungs while were training; our lungs have begun to swell. Its having a bad effect on our physical and mental health. People here are living very close to rubble. We took dust samples from the top of the tents where they live. We also entered the area where demolition waste is stored and there we took various samples for asbestos analysis. Just like the residents, the workers do not use any protection from the dust. Asbestos can cause mesothelioma, lung and pleural cancer over decades. Exposure to constant dust can also lead to acute illnesses. My brother got sick from the dust. We took him to the hospital, and they gave him blood. Ive breathed it in too. Its making us sick. The ones who could afford to leave the city have left, but many have nowhere else to go. According to Public Health experts, thousands of children in the region are now at risk of developing pleural or lung cancer as adults. 50 kms away on the coast of hatay, we talk to another local with acute symptoms. My whole family has it. My wife has it the worst. The rubble right next to his shop, contans all sorts of waste, from electronic goods to toxic heavy metals, as well as fibre cement and insulation materials known to contain asbestos. No one came to examine us or offer counselling. Even though we live in the center of the city. Were not in villages or in the mountains. Hes not the only one living next to piles of rubble. Across the region, demolition work is underway in the streets. Ecevit alkan, a lawyer from the hatay lawyers association, has been campaigning since the earthquake happened for safer management of rubble waste, that protects Public Health. He too fell ill from the dust. Over there is a canal used for agricultural irrigation. Theres a high school, and Police Headquarters nearby. Then theres another school, and a Container City is about 50 metres away from here. A breeding area for loggerhead turtles is close by. So is the beach, and also a bird sanctuary. Using this place as a rubble dumping area is highrisk. The crew take samples from the dump site, and from the leaves of the vegetation nearby. Olives and parsley are grown here. And once its been harvested, local produce is transported all over turkey. They never covered trucks that carry rubble with tarpaulins. Even that would have helped to prevent dangerous and Hazardous Substances like asbestos from contaminating surroundings, and helped protect Public Health. Locals say the government has prioritized reconstruction efforts over Public Health. After two days of reporting on the ground, were back in gaziantep. The team takes another dust sample from the top of the car. The next day, the Laboratory Results show that cars can carry asbestos dust hundreds of kilometers. The detailed lab reports prove that residential areas, soil, leaves and fruits in many neighborhoods are contaminated with asbestos. The lab results we received are alarming. We detected asbestos in 16 out of 45 samples. The statements made by the authorities in hatay and the ministry of environment dont reflect the realities on the ground. Public Health Expert ozkan kaan karadag also examined the report. In the coming years, we may see tens of thousands of very young people die of mesotheliomarelated conditions. In order to determine how many people are affected in the region, we need objective Health Monitoring studies. Official statements claiming that people are not affected is just covering up the problem. Now, he says, its vital the authorities act fast. Measures begin to be taken today. That would help. The dust and smoke need to be closely monitored and eliminated. Masks should be distributed to people and workers in the region, and they should be encouraged to use them. The areas that are most affected most by dust should be identified and the residents relocated. All around the world, the Asbestos Removal process is costly and slow. But the Current Situation in turkey shows that in regions at risk of earthquakes, its a matter of urgency. Because otherwise, when disaster strikes, the consequences will be deadly. So weve arrived at minus 437m underground. Were inside the only final Storage Facility for spent nuclear fuel in the world. There is going to be basically no danger within the next hundreds of thousands of years. This tunnel deep underground is supposed to be the gamechanger for Nuclear Waste. There are a quarter of a million tons of Nuclear Waste just lying around across the globe. In some cases, leaching toxins into the environment. And nobody really knows exactly what to do with it yet. Except for the finns. So how did they do it . And does this mean weve solved the Nuclear Waste problem once and for all . When i first heard that the finns were building a Nuclear Waste deposit site, i thought it was going to be in the middle of nowhere maybe in the arctic circle. But no, its actually just a threehour car ride away from the capital helsinki. In a municipality of almost 10,000 people, called eurajoki. Which also happens to be home to europes Largest Nuclear reactor. The municipality actually bid to host the site and was selected from four possible locations. Construction started in 2004, right next to the power plant. Sounds quite straightforward, doesnt it . But its actually really remarkable that this happened. Because a final Disposal Facility for spent nuclear fuel has to keep highly radioactive waste from leaching into the environment for a couple of hundred thousand years. To put that into perspective, a couple of ice ages will have come and gone in that time. That needs decades of discussions, planning and careful selection of sites and a feat of engineering. Other countries with Nuclear Power plants have also been looking for their own permanent storage sites, but nobody has even started construction anywhere else whether youre pro or antinuclear energy, this problem needs a solution fast. Because the waste is piling up in sometimes inadequate interim storage sites worldwide. But not in finland after decades of research and construction, the site called onkalo, cave or hole in finnish, is about to start operating in the next few years. The project is financed by the finnish Nuclear Power companies, which are partly owned by the finnish state. And were ready to go the trip down takes almost a quarter of an hour. So weve arrived at minus 437m underground. Yeah, it definitely feels like a cave. All around us is crystalline bedrock, a mixture of granite and a rock called migmatite. And thats the first key to why this place was chosen to store the Nuclear Waste. The age of the rock is almost two billion years. Its rather unfractured. Rather dry. We dont have a lot of groundwater movements in here. Antti joutsen is the head geologist at the Company Responsible for the facility. The host rock needs to be unworthy in the sense that not economical. Things that future generations would like to dig out from the rock. But finding the right rock is just the first step. Because Nuclear Waste is unlike any other waste. There are three main types lowlevel, intermediate, and highlevel waste. Lowlevel waste is usually stuff that came into contact with radioactive material. Like protective equipment, filters, or medical waste. Intermediate waste is equipment used in Nuclear Plants or weapons production like pipes or insulating material. This can stay radioactive for a couple of hundred years. They are decontaminated and disposed of in lowlevel waste sites under or overground. Up to 99 percent of all Nuclear Waste falls into that category. The one percent of highlevel radioactive waste is the most problematic one. That consists mostly of spent nuclear fuel rods. But it also includes waste from Nuclear Weapons production. Spent rods still contain a lot of energy. Enough to emit heat and remain radioactive for up to a million years. And that waste is either sitting in cooling pools or in dry casks around the world a total of over a quarter of a million metric tons, says the International Atomic energy agency. Thats as heavy as 26 eiffel towers. And some of it is leaking radioactive material. Our best solution for handling it safely is burying it deep underground and leaving it to decay for a couple of hundred thousand years until it isnt dangerous anymore. To prevent radioactivity from the rods from leaking in the meantime, it needs to be encased properly. In finland, the spent fuel rods are sealed into 5centimeterthick and around 5meterhigh copper canisters. They are then transported underground with a hoist. Holes are drilled into the bedrock along very long tunnels. The canisters are then put into the holes as in this demo drilling. Wow, thats so deep. You can hear my echo there. Then the hole is filled up with bentonite clay, which is also used as cat litter and can absorb groundwater that might seep in and corrode the copper canister. And, finally, the tunnel is backfilled with the same material and sealed with a 6meter thick concrete slab. As you can see here in this demonstration tunnel. Those capsules or canisters are the most controversial part of the whole Nuclear Waste repository. The problem is what happens if the bentonite layer has defects or is damaged and groundwater containing sulfide and hydrogen does reach the canister. Researchers have shown in multiple studies that copper could corrode and the canisters could fail much faster than the company in charge has calculated possibly already in a time span of decades. Research on this is ongoing and the topic is highly debated in the scientific community. But the stance of the Finnish NuclearSafety Authority and posiva is that the uncertainty isnt so high that it would pose a significant risk. And they stress that the canister is just one protective layer of many. Onkalo is meant to house all the future waste of finlands existing Nuclear Power plants. Nor is it clear how future generations will be able to tell that radioactive waste is located here or if it should be kept unmarked but thats a question for another video. But even so, finland is way ahead of most nations. Maybe because of their unique mentality. One role in there might be the pragmatic mindset of finnish people. There has been a mutual consensus that we need to take care of the waste. Not to leave them to future generations. There has been very little opposition from the society. Summer 2023 was the hottest since records began. It was also a summer of fire and water. Vast areas of land worldwide were destroyed by wildfires and floods. Meanwhile in the canadian town of tuktoyaktuk on the edge of the arctic a stealthy catastrophe is unfolding. Those looking to travel to the end of the world, face a bumpy road. Its 170 lonely kilometers along the dempster highway to reach tuktoyatuk. This is where the artic ocean begins. Its devalynn pokiaks first big project. She can hardly believe that she landed a spot on Dustin Whalens team. Shes the only one in the canadianbritish Group Without an academic backround. And the only inuit. The community was concerned about the air, dust, ground stabilty, erosion and our water ways, so were out here to collect that data with the help of the researchers and the scientists. Everyone in tuk, as the village is referred to locally, knows Dustin Whalen. The canadian permafrost reseacher has been coming here for almost 20 years. Unlike his colleagues who fly in and out to collect data, he recognized early on the importance of getting Indigenous People like devalynn on board. People that lived in the community, like devalynns dad, the knowledge that they have about the land is far, far above any of the knowledge that i have learned in my academic text books about processes, or Climate Change or coastal erosion. A Training Session out on the arctic ocean. Temperatures stable the scientists are teaching devalynn how to collect data in a way thats useful for research. Both sides stand to gain. The community has opportunities and theres also other opportunities for western scientists who want to learn and who are open about our culture, so its really good. Weve got a good team going. Dustin whelan takes us to tuk island. It sits just offshore and serves to protect the harbor from storms. And thats vital, as boats leave from here to bring supplies to all the remote regions round about. But the island is shrinking by two meters every year. This summer, the erosion was even worse than usual. Dustin warns us to be careful and to jump from one patch of grass to the next. Areas of deep mud lie between them. The shore is melting, as thick layers of ice are exposed to the sun. Right here, this area here where the permafrost has thawed, it exposes this massive ice. And you can actually see the pure ice underneath, and as soon as that is exposed to the air it just melts. But there are a lot of parts of Climate Change that were not seeing, and one big one is the release of Greenhouse Gases or methane into the atmosphere. So thawing permafrost can release decayed organic matter. The arctic region is heating up much faster than the rest of the planet, and the consequences are readily apparent. This little island, thats one kilometer long, is steadily shrinking. This has eroded back one and a bit meters since the end of june or beginning of july. We hear this often when i was a kid things were different. Well now the youth are saying, last summer things were different. or last summer, you know i could walk right across this bank, and now its totally gone and we see this huge thaw failure here. Temperatures of almost 30 degrees celsius in the arctic are no longer unheard of. Locals cant remember a summer that was as hot and long as this year. Residents including many inuit families that have lived here for generations are asking how long this can continue. Noella cockney already lost one significant battle with Climate Change. The waves crashed against her house for so long, that it was no longer safe for her to live in it. The entrance was just a little further off to the side where you are there. This is where my house was. During the last year i was just worried that my windows were going to get smashed, because the debris thats being smashed up against the ground, and splashing against my house itll end up breaking it. Her cousin tried to reinforce the bank next to his property, but already his barn is no longer safe. Tuktoyaktuk was recently granted millions by the government to preserve the coastline, but all such solutions are only shortterm. Cockneys neighbours are living on borrowed time. Eventually theyre going to have to be moved inland too. Its hard to fathom that, and how many people are going to have to be displaced because of Climate Change. James martin and craig warren are also part of Dustin Whalens team. They spend hours strolling around tuk with Ground Penetrating radar. Its part of their efforts to help the inuits better adjust to Climate Change. Their radar measures the thickness of the permafrost under the roads. Its doubtful that this would save the community in the long term, but there is a lot talk about moving the community to a new site. And what were learning about how infrastructure affects the depths of permafrost, could be that construction of new facilities at the new site will be more robust. The team gathers around a Kitchen Table for a meeting. Devalynn pokiak has been part of the Research Team for a long time now. She even presents her work at international conferences. In winter, when the researchers are back at their universities, she monitors the various measuring stations, and collects samples. Its good, and it pushes me to want to further my education so these could continue on. And i could possibly show the community that you can do these things here. When you get to know who youre working with as humans, you understand what they need to get out of it, and what we need to get out of it. You knowBetter Outcomes for the community and Better Outcomes for the science. Before saying goodbye, Dustin Whalen takes us to see a peninsula thats of special interest to reseachers. Huge walls of ice shine in the evening sun. Up to 40 meters of it disappear every year. Whalens team is using timelapse videos to document erosion. So weve got this one, and theres a layer of massive ice down here. And that bit of massive ice is retreating back up. To feel that were doing something positive, to gather data to work with the locals here and to learn from them and coproduce solutions is everything to us. And for me as an academic and a scientist, thats really what we strive for. The impact of Climate Change is actually audible here. The inuits have taught Dustin Whalen and his colleagues about resilience, something that is naturally part of their culture. The western scientists are learning to follow suit. Anchor this is dw live from berlin. Hamas releases two hostages. A mother and daughter were among 200 people abducted earlier this month. Meanwhile, growing concerns about conditions in gaza. Theun secretarygeneral demands the opening of a border crossing. No u