>>>Some pictures are very graphic & disturbing, so if you think you won’t be able to handle it, it’s not a good idea to continue.
Had the idea for starting this thread after accidentally surfing onto the PhotoEssays section in www.outlookindia.com. Out of the grim images it had, i looked at the pictures of some of the victims of the world’s worst industrial disaster with the most shame. i had come across this issue many times over the past years in conversations and readings, but i have never really paid attention to it - another sad calamity befalling a developing country i thought. These pictures forced me to face reality - the issue of this disaster, caused by negligence on the part of the Union Carbide company, affects us all. It’s not just a matter for the people of Bhopal, or India, or Asia. But for qismet, we could have been in these peoples’ shoes.
In Bhopal, India, during the early hours of 3 December 1984, at the pesticide plant of the American multinational chemical company Union Carbide, a runaway reaction overheated a holding tank of highly toxic methyl isocyanate. It spewed out a poisonous cloud that the moist night air transformed into a chemical vapor of at least 65 gases, including hydrogen cyanide.
The cloud of toxins crept close to the ground and enshrouded people as they lay in their beds or tried to outrun the gas, burning their eyes, throats and lungs. Within hours, 2000 people had died; over the years, the government estimated that 5000 people lost their lives due to the ongoing effects of exposure to the gases. Activists put the death toll at 20,000.
Survivors of the disaster standing in front of the factory just 24 hours after the lethal gas leak. Their eyes and lungs had been badly damaged by exposure to the gas.
Children awaiting cremation. Due to the large number of deceased people, it was necessary to ID the bodies as quickly as possible - thus identification labels had to be pasted onto these childrens' foreheads.
There were so many dead bodies that availability of places for burial became a problem. Mohammad Aziz, looking at some skeletons that had come out of the graves; in his words: I remember making three tiered graves. There was no option but to pile up one body on top of another. In those three to four days we must have buried more than 4,000 people.
Rehana Bi has carefully preserved the picture of her with bandages around her eyes that appeared in an international news magazine after the disaster. The eyes of her son, Chand, then a year old, were also damaged.
This couple spent almost all their money on medical treatment since being exposed to the gas. When doctors advised Leela Devi that an abdominal operation was essential for saving her life, they had to borrow money from their neighbours. They have been in debt ever since.
Union Carbide had reached a $470-million out-of-court settlement with the Indian government in February 1989. Local tribunals had been created by the federal Indian government to decide compensation affairs; 560,000 survivors' claims were accepted by the tribunals. The average payment to each survivor was just $580. The first payments were not even made until almost ten years after the disaster.
Nanko, aged 76, was independent and able to provide comfortably for his family. After the gas disaster, he became a beggar. The tragedy left in its wake loss of job opportunities, mounting medical bills and lack of support structure from the state.
He is known as the "Death Doctor". I must have performed more than 20,000 autopsies so far. No relative of a gas victim can get a compensation claim for a death without my certificate. It has been a nightmarish experience. Dr. Sathpathy, the forensic expert at the state government's Hamidia Hospital, the only one operating on the night of the disaster.
Foetuses which were aborted by pregnant women escaping from the gas, or shortly after the gas leak, were preserved at the state government's Hamidia Hospital, to establish the cause of death.
Rubeda Banu's three sons have stunted growth. Shakeel, who was a week old when the tragedy occurred, Raes Ahmed who was 18 months and Muzaffar who was born a year later, are all less than five feet tall. Rubeda's mother has severe problems related to breathing and mental depression.
Pushpa, 70, lies in a ward in the Bhopal Memorial Charitable Hospital and Research Centre. She is our aunt. She was exposed to the gas. She has been sick ever since. But now her condition is much worse. In fact, this hospital has become almost like a second home for us.
To this day, a huge number of survivors of this gas disaster have never seen any compensation money from Union Carbide. Many survivors have taken up legal action in the US against the multinational company. Many cases are still pending.
Mohammad Arif. With a sick heart and damaged lungs that provoke violent coughing fits that rack his fragile body, he spends his days in pain. Doctors say he has pulmonary fibrosis, a condition that can only be cured by replacing his lungs. That operation would cost extensive amounts of money, something that Mohammad Arif does not possess.
A view of the abandoned pesticide plant. Union Carbide fled the scene in 1984 and for the last 18 years virtually nothing has been done to clean up the highly polluted site. In Canada or the US, would a foreign pesticide company ever be allowed to cause the deaths of 20,000 people in an accident and get away with it without at least accepting responsibility for cleaning the site?
Union Carbide left hundreds of tonnes of toxic waste on the site. Until mid-2001, the factory grounds were inaccessible without special permission from the government. Now the perimeter walls are broken and local children play in the area, which remains dangerously contaminated.
Contamination from the plant pollutes the soil and ground water of local communities. Faced with no alternative, hundreds of people still drink and wash with the contaminated ground water.
The suffering continues in Bhopal but not in silence. Sunil Kumar (right) one of the many Bhopal activists, calls for justice. He was given up for dead when the disaster struck. Now he is dedicated to the struggle against corporate crime.
Protestors draw attention to the contrast between efforts to find Osama bin Laden and those to extradite Warren Anderson, former chief executive of Union Carbide. Anderson is evading justice in the United States and wanted for crimes in Bhopal.