Flying across the centre of South Africa - southwards from Johannesburg - it's clear that great swathes of this country have been dug up for profit.

The diamond mine near the town of Kimberley is one of the biggest holes in the world. It's no longer operational, becoming instead a huge tourist attraction, and so big there's room for cars to move around at the bottom.

Clive Myrie meets asbestosis sufferers who are seeking justice

Drive around 250km further south west, and you reach the town of Prieska.

Here the holes that have been dug and the mines that used to employ hundreds of people didn't yield diamonds but asbestos. It's a curious fibrous substance - blue in colour - found embedded in rock. For many, many years it was used in the construction of buildings.

Demonstrators carried x-rays showing the asbestos dust clogging victims' lungs

That is until it was discovered that asbestos caused cancer and could rot lung tissue. Cape plc - a British company - ran an asbestos mine and mill in Prieska for many years but sold them in 1979. However the legacy of the company's presence in South Africa lives on in the shattered lives of thousands of people.

I went to see Stephanie Jensen in her home in Prieska. She's 44 and been told she has 18 months to live. Working as a nurse near the asbestos mine and mill meant that over the years she inhaled large quantities of asbestos dust. It's eaten away her lungs. She has cancer and lives on a daily diet of pills and morphine to take the pain away.

There are many people like Stephanie in Prieska who are dying because of asbestos and I watched a few hundred of them march in protest through the streets demanding Cape plc pay them compensation.

Some carried banners proclaiming that asbestos had killed their loved ones and why hadn't Cape plc come forward and taken responsibility. Others had chest x-rays of some of those who'd already died stuck to huge white pieces of cardboard, clearly showing the clouds of asbestos dust that had taken their lives.

The demonstrators want justice to be done in Britain

The marchers - about 400 of them - and 2600 other people are currently involved in a protracted legal campaign to force Cape plc to pay damages but in England not South Africa. Legal aid isn't available for compensation claims in South Africa which means it's highly unlikely any of the claimants who are all poor could ever afford to go to court.

Cape however has successfully argued that because the injuries took place in South Africa then the case should be heard in South Africa. Lawyers for the claimants are now preparing to go to Britain's highest court, the House of Lords to settle the issue.

What was quite clear from the faces of those who were marching is the sheer disbelief at what had happened to them. Not just the fact that the local mine that once through it's wages allowed people to live was in fact killing them all the time. But that now the company responsible was trying to wash it's hands of the affair, to wriggle out of it's duty to look after it's workers.

Near one open cast mines, the Glenalen works now closed down, are the graves of migrant workers who left nearby townships during the dark old days of apartheid looking for work.