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Bhopal: Hundreds of New Victims Are Born Each Year
· Children of victims suffer but have no health cover · 23 years after disaster, site has still not been cleaned
Hundreds of children are still being born with birth defects as a result of the world's worst industrial disaster 23 years ago in the central Indian town of Bhopal, say campaigners. They are demanding that the Indian government provide immediate medical care and research the "hidden" health impacts.
More than two decades ago, white clouds of toxic gas escaped from American multinational Union Carbide's pesticide plant. The gas killed 5,000 people that night and 15,000 more in the following weeks - and doctors say that a new generation is being affected.
The true legacy of the disaster is only now coming to light. The Indian government stopped all research on the medical effects of the gas cloud 14 years ago, without explanation. Despite the country's supreme court ordering that the children of victims receive insurance, more than 100,000 remain without cover.
Satinath Sarangi of the Sambhavna Trust, which helps to rehabilitate victims, said that the Bhopal victims' penury and low social status meant few are prepared to help.
No one, he says, has taken responsibility for cleaning up the site and paying the high cost of medical bills.
"Because these people are poor or from a minority or lower caste no one seems to care. Their lives and their children are being sacrificed for the cause of industrial progress," Sarangi said.
Medical experts who had studied the effects of the gas on children born in communities affected by the gas cloud said there was now "no doubt of increased chance of the negative effects in children".
A 2003 study by the American Medical Association found that boys who were either exposed as toddlers to gases from the Bhopal pesticide plant or born to exposed parents were prone to "growth retardation".
Yesterday campaigners, who marched the 500 miles from Bhopal last month and vow to sit in protest in Delhi until the government acts, held a press conference to highlight a new fight for compensation for families whose children have been born with "congenital birth defects".
One of the mothers, Kesar Bhai, held her 12-year-old son Suraj in her arms. She had inhaled the noxious fumes in 1984 and was hospitalised but recovered. Her son, Suraj, was born brain damaged and cannot sit or talk.
"My husband is a labourer. We have no money to spend on our son. He cannot even eat on his own. I get free medical care for my breathing difficulties because I am a gas victim. My child does not get any help but he has been affected," she said.
Other children's growth had been stunted, said campaigners, because there has been still no clean-up of the Bhopal plant despite a promise from the prime minister in 2006. So far, less than 20% of the funds set aside to dismantle and make safe the plant have been spent.
The disused Union Carbide factory contains about 8,000 tonnes of carcinogenic chemicals which continue to leach out and contaminate water supplies used by 30,000 local people. The clean-up has been stalled by a mixture of bureaucratic indifference, legal actions and rows over corporate responsibility.
Dow Chemicals, which bought Union Carbide in 2001, says it is not responsible, arguing that because the plant is on government land it is up to the state to clean it up. However, the Indian government's chemicals and fertilisers ministry has said in court that Dow should pay 1 billion rupees, or £13m, to dismantle the factory and restore the fields.
Backstory
On December 2 1984, the sleeping citizens of Bhopal were enveloped by a lethal fog of poisonous gas spewing from a pesticide plant owned by American multinational Union Carbide. The gas was methyl isocyanate, which when inhaled produces an extremely acidic reaction attacking the internal organs, especially the lungs. This stops oxygen entering the blood, and victims drown in their own body fluids. The Indian government is still pursuing Warren Anderson, the former chief executive of Union Carbide, who keeps a low profile in retirement in New York and Florida. Union Carbide paid a lump sum of $470m in an out-of-court settlement with the Indian government in 1989. When the money was distributed among 570,000 people in 2005, most recipients got little more than £600. Dow, one of the world's largest chemical companies, purchased Union Carbide in 2001. Campaigners then covered its Mumbai offices with red paint, saying it was the "blood of Bhopal". Dow says it never owned or operated the Bhopal plant and it has no responsibility for the events in 1984.
© 2008 The Guardian
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15 Comments so far
Show AllDow Chemical bought Union Carbide knowing damned well it was liable for the disaster at Bhopal. It cannot now turn its back and pretend it has no liability for its subsidiary. The money at stake -- 1 billion rupees -- is a drop in the bucket of Dow's immense annual profits, but the question is not one of money but one of precedent. If they pay for this disaster, which they are clearly responsible for, they may be called upon to pay for other "accidents" they may cause in the future. It is the established policy of American corporations not to admit responsibility for anything unless forced to do so, and then to fight the admission of responsibility for as long as they can. Look at how long it took Exxon to admit culpability in the Valdez disaster, and how long it fought paying even one penny of the money it was ordered to pay in damages. Scum, all of them. Rich white scum who care more for profits than anything else, including the suffering souls who did nothing more than live in the vicinity of a place where the American corporation did a sloppy job of running a business. I bet if that plant had been in the U.S. there would have been no accident, safeguards would have been in place, and people's lives would not have been at risk. But low-caste Indians? Who cares, right?
Scum. All of them.
Still getting away with mass murder. I remember another insecticide, called Zyclone B, that killed many prople. And then there was that stuff Rumsfeld's company sold to Saddam...
Having occurred right after Ronald Reagan was re-elected in 1984, this is another chapter in the legacy of Reaganomics.
I sometimes wonder how we can be of the same species - Those of us who care, cry, and those of us who perpetrate crimes against humanity like Bhopal. Are they really human? One of their most effective shields (the way they avoid feeling the pain they are inflicting) is to deny the humanity of their vitims. They were just Jews, Kurds, Untouchables, etc. Since I don't want to be like them, I have to conclude that they must be human. I guess I don't have to like it though.
From reading this article, and much as the problem is Dow/Union Carbide's, it does not appear that the Indian Government is exactly covering itself with glory. Why cannot they clean up the site (not that that would fix everything) and give Dow the bill?
And don't think it could not happen in the good ol' US of A. It could, and has.
"Power_Slave April 30th, 2008 9:24 pm
The difference between capitalism and communism/socialism?"
That's a very broad brush you're using there. And well done for distracting from the real issue.
"But low-caste Indians? Who cares, right?"
For 300 plus years we were 'dirty Indian dogs ' to our Colonial masters. The elite establishments of the time used to have signs at their entrances clearly stating 'dogs and Indians not allowed '.
Then for over 50 years after independence , having been beggared and bled dry for 300 plus years , we became the basket case for the West . Thrown the occasional scrap or two off the High Table .
Now (despite the odds) we've begun pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps . And lo and behold we've become the target of much loathing , scorn ( and envy ) by many a Westerner . Its almost as if it grates on their nerves that we no longer come around with the begging bowl , as we were wont to.
True . The Indian government can and should have done far more than it has . But one would also do well to consider the sheer scale of the problems confronting it .Problems that would have overwhelmed many a 'greater' nation.
Even the mighty US ( with massive resources at its command ) hasn't exactly covered itself in glory ,pre- and post -Katrina.
The line about the chickens coming home to roost after 9/11 was right on, but that was nothing compared to what's coming. Everybody knows it's coming but everybody pretends not to know:
Global warming is gonna get us. If that fails, consider the matter of antibiotic-resistant microbes just waiting for their chance at an overpopulated planet.
Once weakened by hunger on a large enough scale in a concentrated enough population, rich white people are going to find out what the suffering in Africa has to do with them. Sorry Daddy Warbucks, there won't always be an unlimited supply of labor.
All this genetic tampering by these semi-sane scientists working for agribusiness is fit fodder for some ancient Greek playwright, one of whom thought that bridging the hellespont was hubris enough to invite the wrath of the gods.
By the way we haven't seen the last of DDT, and traces of prozac is in much of the US drinking water.
I know it doesn't matter if it happens in India or China, just don't expect the rest of the world to cry and bleed when it happens here.
We have too many people in power who think they can sow weeds and reap grain.
After the Bhopal disaster I see that Dow is now really concerned with poisoning the civilian populations from their factories like this one in New Zeland.
Residents and workers exposed to dioxin from the Paritutu chemicals' factory in New Plymouth will be able to apply for a state-funded annual health check from July.
The Ministry of Health announced details of the $750,000-a-year scheme in the city last night - but a community group dismissed it as of little value.
Ivon Watkins-Dow, now called Dow AgroSciences, produced the herbicide 2,4,5-T in Paritutu from 1962 to 1988.
Long-term residents who lived near the plant in those years and former plant workers have elevated levels of the dioxin TCDD in their blood.
Dioxins are linked to a range of cancers including leukaemia. There is evidence of links to prostate cancer, type 2 diabetes, spina bifida in the offspring of those exposed, and other diseases.
Sacrificing human beings to industry! Talk about your sickening, screwed-up priorities. Makes me sick. Where is the justice here? Where is it?
Dow Chemical deliberately provided napalm for dousing people during the Vietnam era. This had nothing to do with military objectives (such as they were), but was intended solely to overwhelm the Vietnamese people with grief and to break down their dignity and will to resist our invasion.
Pictures of children running down the road naked while napalm peeled their burning and liquified skin off made it impossible for many of us to go on with our normal lives and ignore the invasion of Vietnam. There are many horrors in the world, but this was a cold blooded and unnecessary slaughter by MY country, the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Considering they would intentionally harm children with chemicals, do you think Dow or Union Carbide care one bit about collateral damage to poor Asian children from an accident? Or damage to us either for that matter.
Pictures of what is happening in Iraq are few and far between because pictures are so powerful. But things like this are happening every day as we try to overwhelm the Iraqis with our relentless cruelty and unlimited willingness and ability to shoot and blow things up and destroy the infrastructure. Blackwater, Halliburton, KBR and armaments companies are the Dow and Union Carbide of today.
NIETSCHZE said, "All this genetic tampering by these semi-sane scientists working for agribusiness is fit fodder for some ancient Greek playwright, one of whom thought that bridging the hellespont was hubris enough to invite the wrath of the gods." Dang! Wish I'd written that! Excellent, my friend! And right on!
At the risk of sounding like an Old Testament Prophet, there IS an inviolate law of karma... that whatever is done to the least of these, will return upon its host. Imagine the impoverishment of souls that put their personal transitory/monetary profits behind products that are GUARANTEED to do great harm, and evoke enormous pain... in children! Persons who are equipped to live lives of luxury on THIS basis condemn themselves to their own hells, as will emerge in the fullness of time. ALL things circle, and come FULL circle. Actions are boomerangs...
"Dow Chemicals, which bought Union Carbide in 2001, says it is not responsible, arguing that because the plant is on government land it is up to the state to clean it up."
Scum.
Dow should be made to pay for medical treatments, including reconstructive surgery and life-time medical costs for all generations affected by this disaster.
Siouxrose
Someone needs to step up the plate and become the instrument of that karma for the sake of all those harmed in this inhumane act.