The discovery of asbestos in a mechanical room has forced the temporary shutdown of the Miami Science Museum. Museum announced shutdown officials last week after asbestos workers in a room near the site of Planetarium found. The Museum will be closed for one week during local environmental investigators a survey of the rest of the site perform. A museum spokesman said that you did not expect to find the dangerous material elsewhere in the Museum, but officials decided to close the doors as a precaution.
The closure has occurred during the Thanksgiving weekend, forced the Museum several events, including some children's birthday party cancel. Visitors that the Museum of the affected appointments had tickets Tickets for future dates. Gillian Thomas, Director of the Museum said he said press the closure was an instance of the Museum "being super careful." She also said that museum officials have no reason to believe that investigators would find asbestos at other locations.
Site Planetarium, built in 1966, is one of the oldest buildings in the Museum. In the 1960s, asbestos uses many construction projects as insulation and creative materials. The Museum was renovated in 1971 but asbestos removal was not part of the project at this time. Another round of renovations came in 1991, by which some asbestos detection and removal, but the Planetarium was not part of this effort.
An interview with a former Planetarium employees in the Miami New Times newspaper said that employees of the presence of asbestos had known weeks before the announcement. Vasko Jontschev, a Bulgarian immigrant to the Planetarium since 1976 had worked, had a heart attack, retire to in 2008. Mr Jontschev told the newspaper that he suffers from bronchitis, he to asbestos in the Museum attributes.
After Mr Jontschev interview took samples of a gray dust he found along the walls of the electric room, where he worked. He sent the dust samples to an independent lab for testing. The tests showed that the dust called Amosite contain appreciable percentage of a form of asbestos.
Mr Jontschev said that the electric room on the primary air conditioning unit connected, the Planetarium, the building served, could have carried out dangerous dust of whole building. He also mentioned that he and his staff in the carcinogenic dust breathed and worked often in the electric room without masks.
Patrick Wong, Director of Miami Dade County air quality management Division, said that Mr. of Jontschev's actions could have one was even grater threat to his health. Mr. Wong said that "the Act which make release could a piece (asbestos) without due process fibres".
Can embed airborne asbestos fibres in the lung tissue of unprotected workers. The fibres pass around the lungs through the lungs and pleura mesothelium, a ring of tissue. In between the fibers of the cellular structure the mesothelium, caused fatal form of cancer called mesothelioma.
Sources: Miami Herald, Miami news times
