25 Years -- Bhopal Disaster

[kyabetsu]

It's been 25 years and no one has cleaned up after a chemical spill that killed 8,000 people in one night in Bhopal, India. The chemical plant was abandoned, with lethal chemicals washing into ground water and soil which are still poisoning the children and grandchildren of the survivors to this day.

Originally Posted by International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal

In the early hours of December 3rd, 1984, an immense cloud of poisonous gas began spewing out of the Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal, India. Methyl isocyanate (MIC) and other deadly gases moved quickly through the city, overwhelming masses of people.

For fear of compounding their legal liability, Union Carbide would not identify the chemical agents that fueled this catastrophe, leaving doctors to treat victims without an answer to their agony. Choking, with violent convulsions, many Bhopal residents drowned in their own body fluids. Thousands died that night.

The gas leak triggered a disaster that is now widely recognized as the world worst industrial catastrophe. More than two decades on, over 20,000 people have died and 100,000 more still suffer severe, chronic and disabling illnesses: victims are plagued by breathing difficulties, damaged eyesight, reproductive complications, rising cancer rates and a range of other ailments that affect nearly every system of their assaulted bodies. Further, a 2003 study in the highly-regarded Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) confirms that children of gas-affected parents are themselves suffering the effects of Union Carbide's poisons.

Union Carbide left Bhopal without cleaning up the factory site, leaving thousands of tons of highly toxic chemicals in sheds, storerooms and solar evaporation ponds. These chemicals have leached into the earth, contaminating the groundwater source for 25,000 Bhopalis who live nearby. Testing in a 2002 Greenpeace report documented the presence of chloroform, lead, mercury and a series of other chemicals in the breast milk of nursing women who live near the factory. Union Carbide is still killing innocent people in Bhopal.

The Dow Chemical Company, based in Midland, Michigan, USA, acquired Union Carbide's assets and liabilities when Dow purchased the company in 2001. In the years following, and to this day, Dow-Carbide has refused to:

* Clean up the factory site, which continues to contaminate the soil, water and much more.
* Provide just compensation to victims made ill by these poisons.
* Reveal decades of the company's research on the effects of MIC and related toxins.
* Stand trial before the Chief Judicial Magistrate's court in Bhopal, where Union Carbide faces criminal charge of culpable homicide (manslaughter) and has fled these charges for many years.

You can find out more about the disaster, the people who are still helping the victims (all the many generations of them...), and what you can do to put pressure on the Dow Chemical Company, the US Gov't, and the Indian Gov't to clean up the site and provide relief to the people at this site.

Participate in the 25th Anniversary Day of Action, and spread the story. It's important people know this happened and is still happening to the children and grandchildren of the original victims.

[Voltron]

I've never heard of it. How can you not do something about your kids playing in puddles of poison? Wowzers.

[Sewer Bull]

Funny thing, I never heard of it as well.

[Type 97 Chi-ha]

I remember reading years ago in The Economist magazine that Union Carbide did pay recompense to the victims, but the Indian government stole it for themselves.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Indira Gandhi was killed in 1984, another incident in India that year.