Cleaning of the asbestos-contaminated Soque apartments, only metres from where a fire destroyed two former woolsheds at Wickham last week, has been completed and was awaiting final certification with hopes of getting residents home over the weekend, the NSW Environment Protection Authority says.
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Crews were on Friday continuing to clean the outdoor environment in Milford Street as the final wall was knocked over in the demolition of the former woolshed shells on Annie Street.
The Newcastle Herald was granted access to the site for a closer look at the clean-up effort.
Fire last week gutted the former woolsheds - the four-floor, 80-year-old warehouses that were home to more than a dozen businesses - and spread debris west across Wickham and into Maryville and Islington.
The roofs of the woolsheds were made from Super Six, which is a building material that contains asbestos.
The wind carried debris containing asbestos into several neighbourhoods in the three Newcastle suburbs.
Residents of the Avenue Apartments on Milford Street were allowed to return home on Tuesday night for the first time in a week after cleaning and certification was completed.
Cleaning of the 98 apartments in the neighbouring Soque building continued through this week.
EPA director of regional operations David Gathercole said residents would be allowed to return home after the building received final certification - which would hopefully be at the weekend.
He said the EPA's top priority was to inspect and clean properties where people had been displaced from home and the agency would then work its way outwards through the suburbs to clean other contaminated properties.
THE WICKHAM BLAZE:
- 'Battled hard': how firefighters halted warehouse fire's spread to fuel depot
- 200 units and 50 houses evacuated overnight as a precaution
- 'Mega' fire devours a piece of Newcastle's architectural history
- Woolshed fire victims begin to count costs
- Asbestos concern as smoke begins to clear after Wickham fire
- Students moved to different schools over asbestos concerns
- Two hundred still waiting to go home a week after Wickham fire
- Woolshed tenants well-drilled when fire struck
- Residents angry over asbestos clean-up document
A public meeting regarding the clean-up effort took place at Hamilton last night - more information on that can be found on the Newcastle Herald's website.
The EPA did a letterbox drop late on Thursday with information about asbestos and what residents should do about suspected contamination, nine days after the fire.
It followed complaints from residents about a lack of communication on the issue.
Islington Public School remained closed, with students and staff conducting their classes at one of five other schools.
Waratah West Public School had a barbecue on Friday to welcome the Islington cohort.
Super Six is a corrugated cement product, most commonly used as roof cladding, that was manufactured using asbestos fibres.
Asbestos fibres can become airborne when Super Six is damaged by fire.
Last week's inferno took place on a block next to the Ampol storage facility - flames came as close as 30 metres to the first of three tanks containing about eight million litres of fuel.
- Anyone with suspected asbestos material on their property should call the EPA Environment Line on 131 555 or email info@epa.nsw.gov.au.
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