Japanese workers' deaths linked to asbestos

Japanese industrial equipment maker Kubota said 79 employees, mostly plant workers, died over a decades-long period of a type of cancer likely caused by the company’s production of asbestos products.

Separately, three residents who live near the plant were also found with asbestos-related illnesses.

The Kubota workers who all died of mesothelioma – a deadly asbestos-related cancer – were employed at two domestic plants in western Hyogo prefecture (state) and eastern Kanagawa prefecture, where sewage pipes, roof tiles and other building materials were made, said Koji Motomoji, a spokesman for the Osaka-based company.

Four company employees whose work required frequent visits to the plants also died of mesothelioma, Motomoji said.

The company has never confirmed that its plants were to blame, he said. However, Kubota believed there was a “high probability” those cases were linked to its factories, and had notified authorities and compensated the families, he added.

Asbestos was widely used in Japan in buildings as insulation and in roof tiles until the 1980s, and the government officially banned the shipment or production of asbestos only last year.

Kubota produced 90,000 tons of asbestos for building materials at six domestic plants from the mid-1950s until 1975.

Separately, Kubota said it had sent an undisclosed amount of “gift money” to three Amagasaki city residents who were diagnosed with cancers likely caused by emissions from the company’s plant in Hyogo prefecture, Motomoji said.

Environment Ministry official Tsutomu Mizutani said the ministry was looking into media reports that at least two other people died of causes linked to the company’s plants.

At the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Thursday, Kubota’s shares nose-dived 2.9%.

The company, founded in 1890 as a maker of industrial-equipment moulds, specialises in farm equipment. It has 11,600 employees worldwide and overseas operations in eight countries.