Pizarreño asbestos disaster

From 1935[1] to 1998[1] the company Pizarreño[A] contaminated its neighborhood and its workers' homes with asbestos while producing toxic building materials.

In 1951 the Pizarreño moved its manufacture plant to Maipú near the road to Melipilla in the western periphery of Santiago.

[1] Pizarreño's workers had to wash their clothes at home, contributing to the spread of asbestos and further exposing their relatives to the mineral.

[4] Reportedly, during the military dictatorship of Chile a trade union leader who was to denounce the company in courts was kidnapped by the National Information Center only to be released six months later without charges.

[1] Furthermore, Cortázar has been accused by Raúl Sohr of acting in tandem with Pizarreño in suppressing journalistic investigations into the asbestos issue while he was director of Televisión Nacional de Chile from 1995 to 2000.