Thirty years after more than 5,000 people, some say 20,000, died after the deadly gas leaked from the Union Carbide's plant in Bhopal, the family members of the victims still await for justice. The horrifying events of the night of December 2-3 1984 haunt the residents of Bhopal even this day. Pressure groups say half a million people suffered varying degrees of health problems.
After three decades the site has yet to be properly cleaned or secured, and four legal battles are still being fought in Indian and US courts with no sign of an imminent resolution. Bhopal residents, as well as those seeking additional compensation for gas deaths and injuries, say toxic waste from the plant in their midst contaminated the water they drank for more than 20 years.
The quiet death in a Florida nursing home in September of 92-year-old Warren Anderson, Union Carbide’s chief executive at the time, has done nothing to relieve the bitterness among victims and their descendants. In the next round of the judicial wrangles over the disaster, Dow Chemical has been summoned to appear in a court in Bhopal on November 12 to explain why it has not obliged Union Carbide to attend the criminal case begun in 1991.
Dow bought Union Carbide in 2001 – more than 16 years after the gas leak – and says attempts to link it to a plant it never owned or operated are “misguided and wrong”.
Indian children born with congenital disease, second generation victims of the1984 Bhopal gas tragedy, participate in a candle light vigil to pay homage to the people killed in the tragedy in Bhopal on December 2, 2013.
One advocacy group, the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal, is demanding $ 8.1bn in compensation for the victims, compared with the $1.2 bn now sought by the government of India and the $ 470m that was paid to India in 1989 in an out-of-court settlement by Union Carbide and its then Indian subsidiary.
Meanwhile, the abandoned and scarcely guarded Union Carbide site in the middle of Bhopal remains a potential source of contamination for the city’s water table, although the company says it used and removed the remaining methyl isocyanate shortly after the disaster.
On Friday 21 November, Navin Shah AM has organised an event focussing on raising awareness about the humanitarian disaster in Bhopal along with media partner Asian Voice and Gujarat Samachar, supported by the Bhopal Medical Appeal and Boris Johnson – the Mayor of London- who has kindly allowed the organisers free use of the GLA venue. The event is also supported by Amnesty International and some major businesses and community groups.
The event will focus on raising awareness of the current humanitarian disaster situation in Bhopal which sees tens of thousands of families still using water contaminated with highly toxic chemicals. The chemicals have leached into their water from waste left at the abandoned disaster site and cause a range of illnesses, cancers, and birth defects.
This will look at ways of helping the existing charities in Bhopal to continue the work they do for children and families suffering from the contamination.
Whilst these charities do remarkable work they are starved of funds, limiting their ability to provide support for the majority of the victims and hindering their efforts to provide a wider range of much-needed services.
There is no charge for this RSVP only event, but you are welcome to make any donation you might able to make to help enhance the ongoing work in Bhopal and help the victims- many of which are children from severely deprived families.
