Bhopal + 30

On the 30^th anniversary of the Bhopal explosion, hundreds of protesters have gathered outside the Indian factory which was the scene of the world’s deadliest industrial disaster. They burned effigies of the plant’s owners, held up banners, and shouted ‘We want justice!’

In the early hours of the morning, 30 years ago today, about 40 tons of deadly methyl isocyanate gas leaked from a pesticide factory owned by U.S. multinational Union Carbide and was carried by the wind into the surrounding slums.

The government’s official total of deaths is 5,295, but activists say the true figure is about 25,000 and that many people still suffer from cancer, blindness, respiratory problems and immune and neurological disorders, and that they have received inadequate compensation. They also complain that toxic waste around the plant is still contaminating water supplies for 50,000 people.

Union Carbide’s present owners, Dow Chemical has denied liability, saying it bought Union Carbide a decade after the firm settled its liabilities to the Indian government by paying $470 million. (see also my blogs of March 17, 2010 and Dec 3, 2012.) For more, see A Disastrous History of the World.

Bhopal + 28 - protests and a museum

On the 28^th anniversary of the Bhopal chemical disaster, victims and their supporters held rallies to complain that they have still not been adequately compensated.    A march on the residence of a leading politician to deliver a letter was halted by police.

Activists complain that still no one has been properly called to account for the disaster, in which poisonous methyl isocyanate gas leaked from Union Carbide’s plant, killing perhaps 3,800 people in the immediate aftermath and causing illness and death to many thousands more in the years that followed.

Meanwhile the ‘Remember Bhopal Trust’ is setting up a mobile museum made up of articles donated by the families of victims, including materials used in protests over the last 28 years.  From December 2013, it will tour India on a bus.

The curator says they have refused any government funding, arguing the government ‘has no moral authority to set up the museum as they were themselves a party to the gas disaster.'  (See also my blogs of Aug 1, 2009; June 7, and July 13, 2010.)

A tale of two disasters - BP and BhoPal

BP has just put a new cap on its leaking oil well in the Gulf Of Mexico. It’s not clear yet whether this latest attempt to halt the flow of oil will work. The US government has been uncompromising in its punishment of BP. The clean-up has cost the company $3.5bn so far, and the Obama administration has forced it to set aside another $20bn to pay for further clean-up, compensation and other costs.

When an American company is the guilty party, though, US attitudes are rather different. Yesterday, protestors in India demanded the extradition from America of Warren Anderson. Mr Anderson was the boss of US company Union Carbide when cyanide gas leaked from its plant in Bhopal in 1984, and the Indian authorities have a warrant out for his arrest. The US has resisted all their efforts.

While the BP accident killed 11 people, Bhopal cost the lives of at least 3,800 in the immediate aftermath, while up to 20,000 more may have perished since, and perhaps another 120,000 are still suffering ill effects – making this probably the deadliest industrial accident in history.

So how many billions in compensation did Union Carbide pay? Er, no billions actually - just $470 million.

(See also my blogs of June 9 and Aug 1, 2009; March 17, April 24, May 1, June 7 and 9, 2010.)

Disaster convictions - Bhopal etc

The eight Indians convicted for their part in the Bhopal disaster have all been sentenced to two years in prison, though one will not serve his time as he died during the 25 years the victims waited for justice. Campaigners such as Amnesty International and the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal have condemned the sentences as completely inadequate.

This feeling is not unusual. A fire in a supermarket in the Paraguayan capital of Asuncion in 2004 killed 432 people, wiping out many whole families. It was alleged that fire exits had been locked, and the two owners and a security guard were put on trial.

In 2006, they were all sentenced to five years in prison, but families of the victims were enraged, and rioted. Two years later, the Supreme Court declared the sentences for the owners too lenient and increased them to ten and twelve years, but hundreds still protested.

After the Egyptian ferry, the al-Salam Boccaccio 98 , sank following a fire on board with the loss of more than 1,000 lives in 2006, an official inquiry concluded that she did not have enough lifeboats and that fire-fighting equipment had been inadequate. The owner and two other people were convicted, but all of them had left the country before the trial. For the full story, see A Disastrous History of the World.

Bhopal convictions

More than 25 years after the Bhopal disaster, eight people have been convicted for causing “death by negligence”. They include former senior officials of the Union Carbide company which owned the plant, including Keshub Mahindra, who was chairman of its Indian arm. The crime carries a maximum prison sentence of two years.

Campaigners have complained that the verdict is too little, too late, and have said it means the disaster has been treated “like a traffic accident.” Warren Anderson, Union Carbide’s chairman at the time of the accident, still notionally faces charges, and is officially regarded by the Indian courts as an “absconder.”

Forty tons of highly poisonous gas escaped from the plant. Union Carbide admitted that about 3,800 people died in the immediate aftermath. Campaigners claim that up to 20,000 more have perished since from the effects of the gas, with another 120,000 still suffering ill effects.

This would make it the deadliest industrial accident in history, though some environmentalists claim that Chernobyl may eventually outstrip it with deaths from cancer caused by its radiation eventually reaching 200,000. For more details, see A Disastrous History of the World. (See also my blogs of 1st Aug 2009 and 17th March 2010)

Lingering disasters

Disasters do not always claim all their victims at once. It has been revealed that perhaps 800 people have died, and up to 10,000 have become ill, as a result of poisons they were exposed to in the aftermath of 9/11. There is now an argument in the USA over who should pay for their medical care. Just under 3,000 died in the attack.

Sometimes the aftermath is far deadlier than the original event. In the world’s worst ever dam burst (see my blog of March 15), human rights campaigners estimate that 85,000 were drowned, but that another 145,000 died of starvation and disease after the event.

A similar pattern can be seen in other floods. When the Yellow and Yangtze rivers burst their banks in 1931, the immediate death toll was around 130,000, but up to 3 million more starved or died from illness later.

As with 9/11, poisons wreak their havoc over many years. The initial death toll from Bhopal was about 3,800, but it’s claimed that another 20,000 died from poisoning over the years that followed (see my blog of Aug 1). While at Chernobyl, only about 30 people died in the first few weeks after the explosion, but some believe it will eventually cause fatal cancers in up to 200,000 (see my blog of April 14).

Bhopal, America and extradition + 1,000th anniversary

Almost 25 years after the world’s worst industrial disaster, a new arrest warrant has been issued for the former boss of the company responsible. When the Union Carbide pesticide plant at Bhopal in India leaked poison gas in the early hours of December 3, 1984, 2,000 people were killed in the next few hours, followed by at least 15,000 over the next few weeks. How many more have died from its effects in the years that followed is not known, but it is thought that more than half a million have been damaged in some way.

Warren Anderson was arrested soon after the disaster, but got bail, left India and has never returned. Now a court at Bhopal has asked the Indian government to seek his extradition from the United States. In view of the Obama regime’s intransigence in demanding the extradition of the British computer hacker Gary McKinnon, it will be interesting to see how it reacts if a request comes from another government to surrender a US citizen for alleged wrongdoing abroad.

On this day…..1,000 years ago, a fearsome Danish army landed in England. Over the next two and a half years, the Danes harried the land mercilessly – ravaging fifteen counties and burning down towns such as Oxford and Northampton.

Eventually in April 1012, they accepted £48,000 – an enormous sum in those days – to leave the country in peace, but not before they had murdered the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Danes had demanded a separate ransom for him, but he bravely insisted that nothing more should be paid, so they pelted him, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, with the “bones and heads of cattle” then split his skull open with an axe.