Thousands of people in the small Indian town of Kymore in Madhya Pradesh have developed cancer and serious lung diseases after a British company dumped more than a million tonnes of toxic asbestos waste there, an investigation by ITV News, a British free-to-air public broadcast television network, has claimed. The estimated clean-up cost stands at around £100 million, yet there are currently no plans to remove the waste because the company responsible, Turner and Newall, went bankrupt in 2001.
Among the victims is Somesh, a father-of-three in his forties who was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic lung cancer after being exposed to asbestos dust decades ago in his school's playground. "We can't go anywhere from Kymore. We have to survive where our family lives. If we get symptoms, then it's bad luck," he told ITV News. His doctor has given him just six months to live, leaving his family at risk of severe poverty.
Kymore was chosen by Turner and Newall as the site of India's first asbestos factory in the 1930s. Despite the company knowing the dangers, workers were offered virtually no protection, and huge quantities of asbestos were left scattered throughout the town. The town's playground is built on top of a former asbestos dump covered with only a thin layer of soil, which experts believe does not come close to making the site safe, while another dump on the edge of town remains completely uncovered and broken pieces of asbestos litter areas where people live and animals graze.
Professor Muralidhar Venkiteswaran, a general surgeon who travels from Chennai, nearly a thousand miles away, diagnosed 1,200 new cases of asbestos-related diseases on his most recent visit in September 2025, and returns every two years. "All these people will die suffering, not just dying, they will suffer a lot of respiratory distress, and will spend a lot of money on lung cancer expenses," he said. Experts have told ITV News that more than 5,000 people have been diagnosed with diseases directly linked to the asbestos out of a total population of fewer than 30,000.
When asbestos breaks apart it releases microscopic fibres that settle in the lungs and cause cancers such as mesothelioma, which is invariably fatal, as well as asbestosis, which scars the lungs and causes severe breathing difficulties, disability and death. Turner and Newall was one of the biggest companies in the UK, and the first recorded victim of asbestosis, Nellie Kershaw, who died in 1924, worked at its factory in Rochdale. Notably, the Kymore factory was opened after new regulations were introduced to protect workers in the UK, yet the same rules were not applied in India despite it being under British rule at the time. The company dumped waste from the production process uncovered in the town for more than 50 years, before going bankrupt in 2001 after being sued by victims in the UK and the US.
The company was also responsible for the Armley Asbestos Disaster in Leeds, where hundreds died from inhaling fibres. A small compensation fund was created for Indian factory workers and their families as part of the insolvency agreement, but nothing was left to clean up Kymore, and workers receive only a fraction of what a court would have awarded. Krishnendu Mukherjee, a UK-based lawyer who has dedicated his life to helping the town's workers, described the situation as "a scandal," saying, "A life in India should be valued the same as a life in the UK." He added, "I think Turner and Newall have got away with it because at one stage they were the largest asbestos product company in the world, making significant profits for themselves and their shareholders and their directors, whilst exposing people, their workers and their families to asbestos."
Under Indian law, the 'polluter pays' principle means clean-up costs fall to the private company rather than the government, but in this case the polluter no longer exists. The factory's new owners say they follow international standards and do not dump asbestos in the town, though they could be legally obliged to pay some clean-up costs; Mukherjee notes that filing a claim would be unaffordable for residents, the company likely could not afford it, and an average civil suit in India takes between 20 and 25 years to conclude. Meanwhile, British law offers little to prevent companies causing similar damage abroad: asbestos is banned in Britain, but nothing stops a British-owned company from making and using it overseas, and there is no comprehensive legal obligation for British companies to check their overseas operations for harm to people or the environment.
In response to the investigation, the UK government said: "These claims are truly shocking, and our thoughts are with all those who have lost loved ones as a result of these irresponsible actions. We expect all UK companies to respect human rights and the environment throughout their operations and supply chains, and we are also considering the findings of a review of the UK's approach to responsible business conduct."
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