Bhopal Still Poisonous 20 Years Later
WASHINGTON, Dec 1 – Citizens of Bhopal, India awoke late in the evening of December 3, 20 years ago, with burning eyes, noses and mouths. Poison gas had leaked from a factory, a catastrophe that killed more than 3,500 within hours and thousands more in the intervening years. It was the worst chemical disaster in history.
And today, several activist groups said Wednesday, it continues to fester.
Amnesty International, Greenpeace and several other organizations advocating on behalf of Bhopal survivors launched a new campaign Wednesday, timed to coincide with the disaster’s 20 th anniversary, denouncing the pesticide plant as a continuing source of pollution.
“The abandoned plant is still leaking toxics to the drinking-water supplies of 16 residential communities, where 20,000 people live,” Rajan Sharma, primary attorney representing Bhopal survivors, told reporters.
Based in New York, Sharma’s legal team is in the midst of a battle to bring liability suits against Dow Chemical in U.S. and Indian courts, charging the company is responsible for the plant’s current leaks.
Dow Chemical, in a statement posted on its Web site, denied having any current responsibility over the Bhopal site, a location it transferred to the state of Madhya Pradesh in 1998.
“All the claims arising out of the release were settled 15 years ago . with the approval of the Supreme Court of India,” the statement said. In 1991, that court forced the company to pay an average of $500 each to the 570,000 people affected by the leak.
Bhopal survivors and officials from Amnesty International, Greenpeace and other groups described the compensation as insufficient and said Wednesday they were not willing to let the tragedy or its victims be forgotten.
Amnesty International, in a report called “Clouds of Injustice,” asserted that neither the company nor the Indian state has cleaned up the “the mess” 20 years later. The report also asked the government of India “to secure justice for the victims.”
More than 150,000 people are still suffering from illnesses stemming from the leak, the advocates said. “We demand medical care and economic and social support for them,” said Rachna Dingra of the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal.
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