Amnesty International Condemns 40 Years Of Injustice Towards Bhopal Tragedy Survivors (image-twitter/IndiaHistorypic)
As the world marked the 40th anniversary of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy on December 2nd, Amnesty International condemned the ongoing “environmental racism” in India, citing decades of institutional neglect of victims and survivors.
At midnight on December 2, 1984, a leak of about 40 tonnes of lethal Methyl Isocyanate gas (MIC) from the pesticide plant in Bhopal, which is owned by US-based Union Carbide Corporation had killed thousands of people living in informal housing around the plant.
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For the past four decades, a woefully inadequate and callous response towards the victims and survivors of the Bhopal gas tragedy has been enabled by environmental racism, Amnesty International said.
Soon after the catastrophe, around 10,000 people are believed to have lost their lives within three days of the week. Thousands of people who were exposed to the gas directly continue to suffer from a range of chronic and debilitating illnesses.
“It is now estimated that more than 22,000 people have died as a direct result of exposure to the leak, while more than half a million people continue to suffer some degree of permanent injury,” Amnesty said.
Apart from the people who were affected by the direct exposure, over the years that followed, a large number of children born to gas-exposed parents have also been affected by growth retardation, birth defects, and other medical conditions.
“Little has changed in the past forty years. Unequal power dynamics have ensured that justice is denied to the victims, who predominantly belonged to low-income, marginalized, and minority communities. Meanwhile, those responsible, especially giant US-based companies, shamefully continue to evade their clear human rights responsibilities. The Indian and US authorities’ failure to hold to account all those responsible for this outrageous crime of corporate negligence is a travesty,” said Mark Dummett, Amnesty International’s Head of Business and Human Rights.
Thousands of toxic waste remain buried in and around the abandoned plant, which has led to ongoing and expanding water pollution. The area can be classified as a ‘sacrifice zone’ as it continues to produce devastating consequences on the health of the local inhabitants.
The UCC, the US-based company that had majority owned the Bhopal plant in 1984 was later purchased by Dow, one of the world’s largest chemical companies in 2001. Instead of taking over all the liabilities of the disaster, the company distanced itself from the survivors.
In 1989, the human rights groups also came forward stating that the UCC had made a wholly unfair and inadequate compensation settlement with the Government of India, which was agreed upon without consulting the Bhopal survivors.
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The group has urged the Indian government to continue to seek legal remedy from Dow on behalf of the victims and to take rapid action to address the suffering through adequate compensation for all survivors.
