INDIA-BHOPAL/FILE File material shows Bhopal victims as 30 year anniversary nears

Record ID: 1376173

  • Title: INDIA-BHOPAL/FILE File material shows Bhopal victims as 30 year anniversary nears
  • Date: 1st December 2014
  • Summary: BENGALURU, KARNATAKA, INDIA (MARCH 1, 2017) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (ANI - NO ACCESS BBC) VARIOUS OF INDIAN CRICKETERS TRAINING (SOUNDBITE) (English) INDIAN OPENING BATSMAN, MURALI VIJAY, SAYING: "We are looking forward for this game and start fresh and put the pressure back on the Australians. So, I think, it is going to be a good challenge for us as a team and it is going to te
  • Embargoed: 17th December 2014 07:54
  • Keywords:
  • Location: India
  • Country: India
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA9SNPBUHKCB07I1NQDFBDDK224
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES
    EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS MATERIAL WHICH WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
    December 2, 2014 will mark thirty years since one of the world's worst industrial disasters occurred.
    On the night of Dec. 2, 1984, the factory owned by the U.S. multinational Union Carbide Corp accidentally leaked cyanide gas into the air, killing thousands of largely poor Indians in the central city of Bhopal.
    Thirty years later, the toxic legacy of Bhopal gas tragedy, lives on as victims and their families are still struggling to cope with the after effects of the disaster.
    Human rights groups say thousands of tonnes of hazardous waste remains buried underground, slowly poisoning the drinking water of more than 50,000 people and affecting their health.
    Activists want this waste removed and disposed of away from the area, and feel Indian authorities, who now own the site, have fumbled on taking action - either by clearing up the waste itself or in pursuing Union Carbide to take responsibility.
    Built in 1969, the Union Carbide plant in Madhya Pradesh state was seen as a symbol of a new industrialised India, generating thousands of jobs for the poor and, at the same time, manufacturing cheap pesticides for millions of farmers.
    Fifteen years later, the 40 tonnes of Methyl Isocyanate gas was released and carried by the wind to the surrounding densely populated disaster remains unclear and under debate.
    The government recorded 5,295 deaths, but activists claim 25,000 people died in the aftermath and following years.
    Another 100,000 people who were exposed to the gas continue to suffer today with sicknesses such as cancer, blindness, respiratory problems, immune and neurological disorders. Some children born to survivors have mental or physical disabilities.
    While those directly affected receive free medical health care, activists say authorities have failed to support those sick from drinking the contaminated water and a second generation of children born with birth defects.
    Activists want Union Carbide, which was taken over by Dow Chemical Company in 2001, to take the waste out of the country, saying there are no adequate facilities in India to deal with it. They have also criticised state authorities for not pursuing the corporation for the clean-up. State government officials were not immediately available for comment.
    Seventeen people living around the plant have filed a petition in the U.S. courts to get the multinational to bear the cost of the clean-up.
    Dow Chemical Co. has long denied responsibility, saying Union Carbide spent $2 million on remediating the site, adding that Indian authorities at the time approved, monitored and directed every step of the clean-up work.
    Union Carbide was sued by the Indian government after the disaster and agreed to pay an out-of-court settlement of $470 million in damages in 1989. The company says the Indian government then took control of the site in 1998, assuming all accountability, including clean-up activities.
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