> The company mined asbestos-bearing rock at several sites in South Africa
"In South Africa" is not very specific.
it seems to have been firstly in this remote in the remote Northern Cape where "The mine eventually became the largest crocidolite mine in the world" : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koegas_mine
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%.
"In South Africa" is not very specific.
it seems to have been firstly in this remote in the remote Northern Cape where "The mine eventually became the largest crocidolite mine in the world" : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koegas_mine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos_Mountains
It predictably wasn't consequence-free at that end either, see the later parts of article. And many other sources, e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2001/sep/15/weekend...