The Bhopal disaster is one of the world’s worst industrial disasters in the history of mankind. The explosion at Union Carbide plant located at the heart of the city of Bhopal caused a release of toxic gas rolled along the ground through the surrounding streets killing thousands of people. The gases also injured anywhere from 150,000 to 600,000 people. Six safety measures designed to prevent a gas leak had either malfunctioned, were turned off or were otherwise inadequate. In addition, the safety siren, intended to alert the community should an incident occur at the plant, was turned off.
George Bush is willing to spend billions, sacrifice many innocent lives, break international laws and dole out summary justice in the pursuit of his misguided ‘war on terror’. However if you are a rich American ultimately responsible for the death of more than 20,000 poor people in far off India, you can expect a life of luxury safe from the long arm of the US law - Greenpeace
Warren Anderson, Union Carbide India CEO knew about a 1982 safety audit of the Bhopal plant, which identified 30 major hazards. Rather than fix them in Bhopal, only the company’s identical plant in the US was fixed. Neglecting these hazards in Bhopal caused the deadly explosion. Anderson flew to India after the disaster but to the company’s surprise, police investigating the disaster immediately arrested him. He subsequently jumped bail and was flow by private jet back to the US, never to return to India. Now he lives a life of luxury in New York State. Anderson has been hiding in the US since the explosion at his company’s plant in Bhopal which caused the immediate deaths of thousands of people and led to life long suffering of over 150,000 survivors.
While fleeing the law in India his company abandoned the polluted factory site allowing it to poison Bhopal residents for 18 years. He did not disclose the composition of the poisonous gas (the company still claims this is a trade secret), thus preventing doctors from properly treating over 150,000 people who are still sick. Very little of the money from the settlement reached with Union Carbide went to the survivors, and people in the area feel betrayed not only by Union Carbide (and chairman Warren Anderson), but also by their own politicians. Dow Chemical took over Union Carbide in 2001 but it claims Union Carbide has ’settled’ the issue of Bhopal.
Watch BBC Documentary on the disaster - One Night in Bhopal
Look at BBC Page on Bhopal Disaster
Also, Remembering Bhopal - A Photo Essay
Read more at Wikipedia.org and GreenPeace.org
Sources: BBC, Greenpeace.org, Wikipedia.org, Stage6, Nighi Videos
Note: This topic was initially posted as 1984 Bhopal Tragedy in March 2006 in the wake of Bhopal Gas Victims march to Delhi. This is an updated post with a high quality BBC Documentary. Some of you may have remembered; this was one of the worst disasters in the modern era.
no words
its killing
First of all, I commend nighi for the excellent job of summarizing the whole issue and for uploading the doc here. We, as young men and women are so entangled in our own lives and careers that we seldom think about issues that have affected our fellow Indians. The reason is because we do not know what we can do or how we could make a difference. We have to realize that the core cause of this tragedy and many such similar issues in the past and present in India lies in corruption. It has affected most of us in some way or the other…if not…will affect us in the future. Now, we are more empowered than our parents because of the technological advances our country has made. With the use of technology we can voice our concerns, create websites, send IMs to gather support and actually do much more just sitting right where we are. Or there could be another way…the point is we can make a difference!
A group called “the yes men” (http://www.theyesmen.org/) recently went on BBC as a spokesperson for Dow Chemical company which bought Union Carbide but refuses to clean up tonnes of toxic wastes in bhopal. The group maintains a phony website http://www.dowethics.com/r/about/corp/bhopal.htm resembling Dow company website. Everyone else in the world seems to do what they can to get hold of the culprits…where is the rest of India?
Thousands of innocent victims…..thousands .could anybody tell me how can we help them.Help which will definitely reach them before becoming victim of corrupted politicians.this question always bothers me and right know i am clueless and impatient.
this impatience is a good thing hope. Many of us really wanna help but donno how. It is a very important question that you have raised. You could offer financial support to many organizations that are actually fighting with the govt for justice. It is because of these NGOs that these people actually got atleast some compensation. You could help by keeping the issue alive. You can help by talking to friends about it. You can help by trying to find out info about the issue and following it up. U can help by keeping the victims alive in your memory.