Bhopal, India

Twenty-four years ago, on the night of Dec. 3rd 1984, a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, began leaking 27 tons of the deadly gas methyl isocyanate. None of the six safety systems designed to contain such a leak were operational, allowing the gas to spread throughout the city of Bhopal. Half a million people were exposed to the gas and 20,000 have died to date as a result of their exposure. More than 120,000 people still suffer from ailments caused by the accident and the subsequent pollution at the plant site. These ailments include blindness, extreme difficulty in breathing, and gynecological disorders. The site has never been properly cleaned up and it continues to poison the residents of Bhopal.

In 1999, local groundwater and wellwater testing near the site of the accident revealed mercury at levels between 20,000 and 6 million times those expected. Cancer and brain-damage- and birth-defect-causing chemicals were found in the water; trichloroethene, a chemical that has been shown to impair fetal development, was found at levels 50 times higher than EPA safety limits. Testing published in a 2002 report revealed poisons such as 1,3,5 trichlorobenzene, dichloromethane, chloroform, lead and mercury in the breast milk of nursing women.

In 2001, the Michigan-based multinational chemical corporation Dow Chemical purchased Union Carbide, thereby acquiring its assets and liabilities. However, Dow Chemical has steadfastly refused to clean up the Bhopal disaster site, provide safe drinking water, compensate the victims, or disclose the composition of the gas leak, information that doctors could use to properly treat the victims.

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Nearly a quarter century after the disaster, the Bhopal site has still not been properly cleaned up. (Dow’s reported profits for 2007 were over $3.7 billion… so the lack of restorative action on this horrific issue is clearly not because the firm cannot afford to make things right). Children of victims continue to suffer, but have no health coverage. Hundreds of children are still being born with birth defects as a result of what is considered to be the world’s worst industrial disaster to date…

Photo: ‘Burial of an unknown child’ by Raghu Rai, 1984.