On December 3rd, 1984, thousands of people in Bhopal, India, were gassed to death after a catastrophic chemical leak at a Union Carbide pesticide plant. More than 150,000 people were left severely disabled - of whom 23,000 have since died of their injuries - in a disaster now widely acknowledged as the world’s worst-ever industrial disaster.

More than 27 tons of methyl and other deadly gases turned Bhopal into a gas chamber. None of the six safety systems at the plant were functional, and Union Carbide’s own documents prove the company designed the plant with “unproven” and “untested” technology, and cut corners on safety and maintenance in order to save money.

Today, twenty years after the Bhopal disaster, at least 50,000 people are too sick to work for a living, and a recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association confirmed that the children of gas-affected parents are themselves afflicted by Carbide’s poison.

Carbide is still killing in Bhopal. The chemicals that Carbide abandoned in and around their Bhopal factory have contaminated the drinking water of 20,000 people. Testing published in a 2002 report revealed poisons such as 1,3,5 trichloro benzene, dichloromethane, chloroform, lead and mercury in the breast milk of nursing women living near the factory.

Some survivors of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy

Bhopal is not only a disaster, but a corporate crime. It began as a classic instance of corporate double-standards: Union Carbide was obliged to install state-of-the-art technology in Bhopal, but instead used inferior and unproven technology and employed lax operating procedures and maintenance and safety standards compared to those used in its US 'sister-plant'.

Although Dow Chemical acquired Carbide’s liabilities when it purchased the company in 2001 , it still refuses to address its liabilities in Bhopal - or even admit that they exist. Till date, Dow-Carbide has refused to:

1) Clean up the site, which continues to;3) Provide alternate livelihood opportunities to victims who can not pursue their uncontaminate those near it, or to provide just compensation for those who have been injured or made ill by this poison;2) Fund medical care, health monitoring and necessary research studies, or even to provide all the information it has on the leaked gases and their medical consequenceal trade because of their exposure-induced illness.

There was no siren and no warning--people woke with the gases already in their faces, filling their mouths, noses and lungs with excruciating pain.

NONE of safety systems were functioning on the night of the disaster—six in all.

Union Carbide and its new owner, Dow Chemical, continue to blame the disaster on a fictitious and unnamed worker, and deny their own negligence.

In the wake of the disaster, Carbide claimed that the gas was harmless, when it knew it was lethal (as described in its own manuals).

Dow-Carbide refuses to share all its medical information about the health effects of the gas it released, MIC--information that doctors could use to save lives--claiming the information is a “trade secret”.

Union Carbide fled India and abandoned its Bhopal plant, leaving thousands of tons of dangerous chemicals behind, which are now poisoning the water of the same people Carbide first poisoned 20 years ago. As more people grow sick, Dow-Carbide still refuses to clean up its pollution in Bhopal.

Set up a National Commission on Bhopal with the participation of non-government doctors and scientists and representatives of survivors for long term health monitoring, research, care and rehabilitation of the survivors of the disaster and their children at least for the next thirty years.

Ensure Dow’s liability for on-site and off-site cleanup and payment of compensation for damage to health and property. Submit an amicus brief in US court in support of the plaintiffs.

Set up a panel of scientists for independent and expert assessment of soil and groundwater contamination. Publish ICMR(indian council of medical research) toxicological and clinical reports.

Blacklist Dow and Union Carbide for purchases by government departments.

Ensure that BMHT(bhopal memorial hospital trust) continues to provide free treatment for gas survivors even after the 8-year deadline. 

Declare December 3rd as a National Day of Mourning for the victims of industrial disasters. The disaster in Bhopal must be made part of textbooks in school and university education in the country.

Supply safe drinking water through Koler Pipeline in communities affected by Union Carbide’s contamination.

Not send chemical wastes from the Union Carbide factory for land filling or for incineration.

Ensure free treatment of patients from communities affected by ground water contamination.

Not build a memorial without proper cleanup of the Union Carbide factory site.

Present a White Paper on expenditures made, programs carried out and results obtained in the last twenty years with regard to the relief and rehabilitation of the survivors.

Group: Karan Kamboj , and Hitesh Arora