On December 3rd 1984, a Union Carbide pesticides plant released a toxic gas which resulted in the deaths of thousands of people and the permanent injury of thousands more. 25 years on, the effects are still being felt in the region.
'A total of 36 wards were marked by the authorities as being "gas affected", affecting a population of 520,000. Of these, 200,000 were below 15 years of age, and 3,000 were pregnant women. In 1991, 3,928 deaths had been certified. Independent organizations recorded 8,000 dead in the first days. Other estimations vary between 10,000 and 30,000. Another 100,000 to 200,000 people are estimated to have permanent injuries of different degrees.
In 2009, a day before the 25th anniversary of the disaster, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a Delhi based pollution monitoring lab, released latest tests from a study showing that groundwater in areas even three km from the factory up to 38.6 times more pesticides than Indian standards.
The BBC took a water sample from a frequently used hand pump, located just north of the plant. The sample, tested in UK, was found to contain 1000 times the World Health Organization's recommended maximum amount of carbon tetrachloride, a carcinogenic toxin. This shows that the ground water has been contaminated due to toxins leaking from the factory site.'
Union Carbide is now a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company.
Dow AgroSciences produces insecticides, herbicides, fumigants, fungicides for the agricultural industry and for home and garden use.
In their article Dirty Dow studentsforbhopal.org lists Dow's unsavoury history including:
That Dow was one of the principal manufacturers of Agent Orange
That Dow factories have contaminated the Tittabawassee River floodplains, with stratospheric levels of dioxin.
That Dow continued to produce and export the extremely hazardous pesticide DBCP to developing countries for years after it was banned in the US
That Dow Chemical and its subsidiary Dow Corning conspired to deceive women with breast implants about the health effects of silicone products
That Dow, in developing Napalm, amended the original product to ensure it stuck to the skin and could not be scraped off and further amended it to ensure that, when those affected tried to wash it off in water, it burned even worse.
That as of December 2000, the EPA has named Dow or Union Carbide as a Potentially Responsible Party (PRP) at a combined 136 hazardous waste sites.
That Union Carbide's binding gum-producing factory in Sri Lanka discharged chemicals into an open drain seriously harming at least a hundred people
At Union carbide's Cimanggis plant in Indonesia, 402 employees were found to be suffering from kidney diseases attributable to mercury poisoning. The company's doctor Dr. Maizar Syafei reported that she was asked by the company not to tell the workers that there was mercury in their drinking water
To read Union Carbide's response to Gardenzine's suggestion that they have washed their hands of any responsibility for cleaning up Bhopal see see here
'A total of 36 wards were marked by the authorities as being "gas affected", affecting a population of 520,000. Of these, 200,000 were below 15 years of age, and 3,000 were pregnant women. In 1991, 3,928 deaths had been certified. Independent organizations recorded 8,000 dead in the first days. Other estimations vary between 10,000 and 30,000. Another 100,000 to 200,000 people are estimated to have permanent injuries of different degrees.
Union Carbide is now a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company.
