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During the month of December people across the globe are commemorating the anniversary of the Bhopal chemical disaster in India.  It is twenty years since the gas leak at Union Carbide India Ltd’s pesticide facility that immediately killed 3,800 people.  Over 20,000 deaths have been directly attributed to the incident in the following years, many health issues remain for local people, and the area remains an environmental catastrophe, contaminated with toxic waste and hazardous chemicals.

Remembering The Disaster
Late on the night of December 2nd, a dense cloud of lethal gas escaped from the pesticide plant on the outskirts of the city of Bhopal.  Blown by the prevailing winds, the cloud settled over much of Bhopal.

Regular maintenance at the American-owned Union Carbide plant had fallen into such disrepair that, when an employee was flushing a corroded pipe, multiple stopcocks failed and allowed water to flow freely into a tank storing lethal methyl isocyanate (MIC).  Exposure to this water led to an uncontrolled reaction; the tank was blown apart and spewed a deadly cloud of MIC, hydrogen cyanide and other chemicals.  This could have been averted, however none of the six safety systems at the plant were functional. 

Nearly 3,000 people died within days and tens of thousands suffered terrible side effects.  It took an average of three minutes for the victims to die.

The city's two hospitals were swamped by 50,000 people: people lay on the floors coughing and vomiting.  Some were temporarily blind; others complained of dizziness, all had problems breathing.  People had acute eye and breathing problems, and kidney and liver failure.  Many pregnant women had to be given abortions.  It later emerged that some of the victims would have suffered the same deaths as soldiers in World War I when chemical weapons were first used.

For days afterwards, funeral pyres burnt and mass burials were conducted.  Herds of oxen lay dead and the bodies of goats littered the roadsides where they used to roam.

The Aftermath
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 safety limits.  Chemicals associated with cancer, brain-damage and birth-defects were found in the water; trichloroethene, a chemical that has been shown to impair fetal development, was found at levels 50 times higher than US safety limits.  Testing published in a 2002 report revealed numerous poisons such as lead and mercury in the breast milk of nursing women.

Corporate Reaction
It wasn’t until 1989 that Union Carbide, in a partial settlement with the Indian government, agreed to pay out some $470 million in compensation.  The victims weren’t consulted in the settlement discussions, and many felt cheated by their compensation which was less than $500.

In 2001, US-based chemical corporation Dow Chemical purchased Union Carbide, thereby acquiring its assets and liabilities.  However Dow Chemical has since refused to clean up the 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.

Next week we will highlight the continuing international condemnation of the treatment of the Bhopal victims; and we will ask whether such a disaster could ever happen in Swaziland.  For more on Bhopal see www.bhopal.org.