BHOPAL DISASTER: TOXIC GAS, DEATHS, EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS

BHOPAL DISASTER

The world's worst industrial disaster ever took place in Bhopal, India on December 2, 1984, when lethal methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas from a Union Carbide pesticide plant blanketed the city, killing thousands of people nd injuring 500,000 others. The deadly gas escaped from plant, located on the outskirts of the city, and passed over the towns of Jaiprakash and Chhola to strike Bhopal.

Estimates of the death toll range from 3,800 to 16,000, with the India government saying 15,000 people died over a period of years. Toxic material remains, and many who were exposed to the gas have given birth to children with physical and mental disabilities. Human rights groups claim that thousands of tons of hazardous waste are buried underground, and the government has acknowledged that the area is contaminated. However, there has been no long-term epidemiological research that conclusively proves birth defects are directly related to drinking the contaminated water. [Source: Alan Taylor, The Atlantic, December 2, 2014]

Estimates of the death toll vary quite a bit in part because many were killed over a period of time from illnesses related to the disaster. The official immediate death toll was 2,259. As of 2008, the government of Madhya Pradesh had paid compensation to the family members of 3,787 victims killed by the gas release, and to 574,366 injured victims. A 2006 government affidavit stated that the leak caused 558,125 injuries, including 38,478 temporary partial injuries and approximately 3,900 severely and permanently disabling injuries. Some have estimated that 8,000 died within two weeks, and another 8,000 or more have since died from gas-related diseases. [Source: Wikipedia]

Union Carbide was one of the first American companies to invest in India. It set up the Bhopal factory in 1980 to produce the powerful pesticide Sevin and “help the country’s agricultural sector increase its productivity and contribute more significantly to meeting the food needs of one of the world’s most heavily populated regions.” For decades, survivors fought to clean up the site, but they claim that efforts slowed when Michigan-based Dow Chemical took over Union Carbide in 2001.

Films About the Bhopal Gas Tragedy include the dramas Bhopal Express (1999) and Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain (2014), which portrayed events surrounding the disaster. Documentaries included the BBC’s One Night in Bhopal (2004), which examined the events and experiences of survivors; Bhopali (2011), which focused on survivors and their campaign for justice; and Sambhavna, which highlighted the continuing effects of the disaster, water contamination, and the free medical treatment provided by the Sambhavna Clinic. The political documentary The Yes Men Fix the World (2009) used a satirical approach to examine the continuing struggle of Bhopal residents. [Source: IANS December 1, 2014]

Toxic Cloud from the Bhopal Distaster

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At least 30 tons of highly toxic methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas and several other poisonous gases were released . The pesticide plant was surrounded by shantytowns, resulting in more than 600,000 people being exposed to the deadly gas cloud that night. The gases stayed low to the ground, burning victims' throats and eyes, inducing nausea, and causing many deaths. [Source: Alan Taylor, The Atlantic, December 2, 2014]

The MIC gas that did the damage was used to make pesticides. Twenty-seven tons of it leaked out of a large storage tank after an explosion and drifted over Bhopal neighborhoods near the factory while people were sleeping. People awoke gasping and choking on their own body fluids. The tank was 90 percent full even though safety regulations s specified it to never be more than half full. At the Union Carbide facility in West Virginia MIC is kept in small concentrations to minimize the risk.

The cloud of gas, which some said sparkled in the street lights, drifted towards the train station and slums near the factory. Some died in their sleep. Some were trampled to death try to escape it. Entire neighborhoods tried to flee from the gas. One man reported seeing a ball of gas bouncing down a road and watching it envelop his wife and children and kill them instantly. When a train pulled into the station passengers were horrified to see bodies piled on the platform. As they got off they too inhaled the gas and died. People lost control of the bladders and bowels as they fled. It took a while to get the Bhopal story out to the world. Bhopal had no international telephones lines and the story had to be "pigeoned" out on the 3:00pm flight to New Delhi.

The cause of the disaster remains a matter of debate. The Indian government and local activists say slack management and poor pipe maintenance caused a backflow of water into a MIC tank, triggering the disaster. Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) has argued for decades that water entered the tank through an act of sabotage. According to Amnesty International: “On the night of 2nd December, 1984, toxic gas had leaked from a pesticide factory run by Union Carbide, India Ltd spreading fumes over a large residential area in Bhopal. Between 7,000 and 10,000 people died within just three days of the leak, our researchers at Amnesty International have since estimated. Hundreds of thousands more were poisoned. Despite the deaths, the many years gone by, and the numbers of people who today still suffer from chronic health conditions as a result of the leak, justice is yet to be served. Survivors have not received adequate compensation for their injuries, the polluted factory site has not been cleaned up, and the companies involved have not been held to account.

Death and Injuries Caused by Bhopal Disaster

Bhopal was home to around 800,000 people. Around 3,000 died immediately. Another 4,000 to 7,000 died in the next few days, many in horrible agony. According to Amenity International another 15,000 died years later from cancer, tuberculosis, gynecological diseases and other illnesses. In the early 2000s 10 to 15 people died from poison-related diseases every month.

Vikas Yadav, 19, and Aman Yadav, 17, brothers, have muscular dystrophy and are being cared for by their mother at their home; their condition is believed to have been caused by toxic waste from the Bhopal disaster which seeped into the groundwater; Image by Rohit Jain. India, 2018pulitzercenter.

Tens of thousands suffered from blindness and ulcers. As of 2004, an estimated 100,000 people were disabled or living with chronic illnesses of the eyes and lungs and diseases related to the disaster. Many suffered pain and misery on a daily basis. Around 150,000 required some type of long-term medical care. There have also been problems of infertility and birth defects. Children born in Bhopal are often underweight and have unusually small heads and high rates of extra or joined fingers and toes, three eyes and fluid in the brain.

In 2004 one survivor told the Strait Times she lost three members of her family to disaster. Her husband died of pancreatic cancer. One son committed suicide after years of pain and coughing up blood every day. Her youngest son died at the age of 20 after a lengthy disease.

The child of survivors told Amnesty International: “I have always wondered what my life would have been like if the Bhopal gas disaster had not happened. From childhood I have seen my father suffer from serious heart problems and my mother face difficulties with her eyesight. I was born ten years after the disaster. But I have seen friends and relatives in my community born with disabilities and deformities.”

Eyewitness Account of the Bhopal Disaster

Moira Sutcliffe, who was a medical student at the time of disaster, wrote: “I flew to Bhopal from Delhi on Sunday 2 December 1984 to begin my elective, which I had arranged to spend in the paediatric department at Hamidia Hospital. In the next two weeks 1337 children were admitted to the department. Of these 119 died and Bhopal became a household name. As the only outsider I was in a unique position to observe the reaction of the city and its medical resources to the world's worst industrial disaster. This report recounts my impressions of how the hospital and staff coped with the disaster and describes some of the clinical features of the toxic gas poisoning. [Source: Moira Sutcliffe, medical student, Bristol University, 1884 British Medical Journal Volume 290, June 22, 1985]

“I spent the first night of my stay with Dr Bhandari, the professor of paediatrics. At about 1 30 am I was woken by the repeated ringing of the doorbell followed by the entry of several people who were coughing violently. At the same time I noticed a sweetish smell, my eyes were mysteriously stinging and watering, and my throat felt raw. I heard the distant sound of a siren, but this being my first night in Bhopal I thought nothing of the incident and went back to sleep. When I woke the next morning I heard that there had been a major gas leak from the Union Carbide insecticide plant about a mile from the hospital, but the nature of the gas was not yet known.

“At first the local news reports knew little more than we could deduce from seeing the numbers of affected people who had flooded into the hospital grounds. The earliest reports suggested that about 30 people had died. With each subsequent news report we listened with disbelief as further details about the horrifying story began to emerge. Even after the first full day we were unable to believe the estimate from the BBC World Service of 2000 dead-later even this proved to be conservative.”

Born and Declared Dead During the Bhopal Gas Disaster

Bhopal pesticide plant of Union Carbide India Limited in 1985, a year after the disaster

Zaharlal was born during his mother’s effort to escape the Bhopal gas leak, in an open field near a crematorium. His name named is a reference to the disaster. He told the Hindu Express: ““I never liked the name because people made fun of me. Jawaharlal would have sounded much better,’’ says Zaharlal, now 30. [Source: Milind Ghatwai, Indian Express, December 3, 2014]

His mother Pano Bihari said: “I did not choose the name; I was too unwell. Others thought it up because they had to enter some name when surveyors came.” On the birth she said: “My eyes started burning as if someone had stuffed chilli into them. I was heavily pregnant and ran a few kilometres and collapsed. The women ensured the delivery. I cannot remember the exact circumstances.” She could not see for weeks and has no idea who took her to the hospital. She recalls having had many foreign visitors, some of whom wanted to take Zaharlal away for treatment and research. “I gave him birth after inhaling poison. How could I let them take him away?”

Shabana inhaled fumes a day after birth and was still suffering the 2010s. “She was a day old and her family of 12 had not even had time to name her when the gas leak drove them out of their small house. They boarded a truck to Parwalia, 20 kilometers away. “We were packed like fish,’’ her mother Naeema says. “For days I did not have a name. When it came to registering my name someone just wrote Bai,’’ says Shabana,.

Shabana got used to queuing up with her mother in hospitals for treatment. “The gas took its toll on my mother’s vision and she still suffers from stomachache,” says the youngest of 10. She says all her three children have some ailment or the other. “My eldest is nine but does not look her age. The second daughter has a thyroid problem and the youngest son is not healthy either. I suffer from chronic stomachache like my mother,’’ she says.

On the morning of December 3, Madan Gopal Parashar, an assistant stationmaster at Bhopal station, regained consciousness and gasped for breath. “There were three to four corpses lying on me and a tag that declared me dead,’’ he told the Hindu Express. ““I was inside my air-conditioned cabin when the gas leaked. When I realised what was happening, I made sure the Kushinagar Express passed through Bhopal station without stopping. The junior staff responsible for operating the system had either fled or had fallen sick after the gas leak. The Kushinagar train always ran packed. That day, my effort must have saved 800 lives.’’

Bhopal victim BBC

“His wife Shanta, 65, remembers hurrying to Hamidia Hospital to look for him only to be told, “He is not here but among the dead”. “I collapsed.’’ She was eventually told an acquaintance had rushed him to J P Hospital. She says Parashar suffers from memory loss, but can talk endlessly about that night. “He does not recognise relatives or neighbours but has repeated that story many times. He recites a poem he had written on the disaster that speaks of human loss, separation, deceit and corporate greed. He also reads out from Sankalp, a railway employees’ journal, his piece on his near-death experience. “This life feels like a second birth. I thought that was good enough for me,’’ he says about his decision not to hanker after more compensation, like many others did. Shanta says the toxic gas had temporarily blinded the family, except the youngest of her three children.

Eyewitness Account of the Dying After Bhopal Disaster

Moira Sutcliffe wrote: “The dead and dying arrived by the truckload, others came by rickshaw or were carried by relatives. For some the effort of the journey itself proved too much, and they died soon after arrival. Many families were split up during the initial panic, everywhere there were people looking for missing relatives. There were long queues of people trying to identify relatives in the mortuary. From an early stage when the mortuary was full, other unidentified bodies were laid out on a nearby lawn and under hastily erected shelters. Facilities overwhelmed The facilities in the hospital and the manpower became increasingly overstretched as the enormity of the disaster became apparent. The doctors were quite overwhelmed. I felt even more helpless; having arrived only the day before I had been unable to see inside the hospital or be introduced to the staff, and was unable to speak the language.[Source: Moira Sutcliffe, medical student, Bristol University, 1884 British Medical Journal Volume 290, June 22, 1985]

“For the first few days I was frustrated that I was not able to do more to help. Without a doctor to interpret for me there was little that I could do on my own. I joined up with a group of other medical students to help administer eye drops, give injections, set up drips, and distribute food. Doctors worked around the clock giving repeated injections; there was no time to resterilise needles between patients. The doctors were unable to spend much time to help any one child, dividing their time between the ill and the dying. Later on I was able to examine the children as they arrived and suggest treatment. I also helped to ventilate dying children and attempt cardiac massage.

“Many hundreds of victims died within the first few hours of the gas leak, death being caused by respiratory failure resulting from the severe pulmonary oedema. The main complaints of those who survived were of a sensation of intense heat, burning eyes, blindness, vomiting, choking, coughing, breathlessness, and a feeling of suffocation. At first the precise toxic effects of the gas were not known so treatment was symptomatic-with antibiotic eyedrops, oxygen inhalation, and intravenous frusemide, steroids, and aminophylline to relieve respiratory distress.

“Of the 119 deaths in the paediatric department from 3-14 December, 106 occurred in the first four days after exposure. The cause of death in most cases was cardiac arrest associated with respiratory failure. On examination these children with toxic lung damage were breathless and hyperventilating but not cyanosed. Many had audible wheezes and grunts, and widespread rhonchi and crepitations were heard with the stethoscope. By the Thursday the initial rush of people coming in had slowed though the death toll was still rising: the official figure now exceeded 2000.”

Treatment of the Children After the Bhopal Disaster

Moira Sutcliffe wrote: “The most severely affected children were attended to in the intensive treatment room, which was about 20 feet square and supplied with only one sink and an electric socket. Rows of infants and older children on drips filled the couches, while others lay on the floor or were held by their parents while they received treatment. Two or three children would be receiving oxygen through nasal cannulae delivered from the same gas cylinder. Most of these children admitted to the intensive treatment room died of respiratory failure within the next few days. The wide corridors of the hospital were packed with victims, several members of each family requiring urgent treatment. The luckier ones had a bed-for the whole family. By the Wednesday these families who had been camping in the ward corridors were being moved out to tents erected nearby by the army. Relief agencies provided food for the victims-milk, bananas, and biscuits. [Source: Moira Sutcliffe, medical student, Bristol University, 1884 British Medical Journal Volume 290, June 22, 1985]

“The children were treated with intravenous frusemide and steroids to help reduce the severe pulmonary oedema, and aminophylline to relieve the wheezing. After about a week about 15 children a day were still being admitted to the wards, mainly with respiratory complaints -cough, breathlessness, and respiratory infections. The eye problems, which had caused widespread distress in the first few days, had been due to the direct chemical irritation, causing painful watering eyes, local oedema, and photophobia. The irritant gas had caused superficial ulceration, which led to temporary corneal opacity in some cases. Prophylactic neomycin eye drops helped to keep the rate of infection low, and atropine drops were also given to prevent the formation of posterior synechiae, though it caused further problems of blurred vision and occasionally induced acute glaucoma. Fortunately, the corneal ulceration was superficial and generally healed without scarring. The mobile preventative ophthalmology units played an important role in the follow up of the eye complications in the community. Some children also showed signs of convulsions, hemiparesis, and coma.

“On 8 December a German toxicologist, Dr Daunderer, visited Bhopal and reinforced the views held by the head of the forensic medicine department, Dr Heereshchandra, that the effects of the methyl isocyanate gas were mediated via its breakdown into cyanide and other toxic amines. If this were the case there was a specific antidote, sodium thiosulphate. The drug was thought to be harmless, but its efficacy was not proved so its widespread use in the treatment of the victims was vetoed. Sodium thiosulphate was administered to a few patients, some of whom showed marked improvement, but by the time a controlled trial had been started it was too late to expect any effect from an immediate antidote. Tragedy attracted world attention.

“For the next few weeks the world's attention focused on Bhopal. Rajiv Gandhi and Mother Teresa came to visit the city, meeting the gas victims in hospital and also in the affected slums around the plant. Newspaper and television reporters arrived from all over the world within a day or two of the tragedy. Everyone was anxious to send back pictures of the carnage in the slum areas, record the death throes of babies in the paediatric wards, and recount the tragic stories of so many left widowed or orphaned by the gas. Some television teams would film patients in the wards, regardless of whether they had been affected by the gas or not. The next few weeks were spent trying to cope with the immediate toxic effects of the methyl isocyanate gas and later to predict the medium and long term complications likely to arise. The most likely problems expected are thought to be respiratory, especially pulmonary fibrosis, though doctors are also anxious to follow up any neurological, ophthalmological, and intellectual sequelae that may emerge. Another fear is the effect of the gas on early pregnancy. Methyl isocyanate exposure was blamed for a marked increase in the rate of premature labour and abortions on the night of the gas leak and in the subsequent few weeks. I had expected the experiences of my elective period to include a range of the usual childhood diseases-polio, tuberculosis, and diphtheria. Instead it was as if I had arrived during the filming of a disaster film-except it was real.

“Chemicals as well as pollens can cause sensitivity. This has been discussed by the World Health Organisation and its conclusion was that this is a considerable health problem and that we know little about it. Many patients feel "dis-eased," complaining of lethargy, myalgia, aching joints, abdominal symptoms, depression, fluctuating weight, etc. They are often referred to a psychiatrist because no tests show abnormal results. These are obviously a heterogeneous group which we now know contains patients with food allergy, the postviral syndrome, those with chemical sensitivity, and some with primary or secondary psychological problems, or indeed a mixture of all these. The pioneering work of Randolph has delineated a group of these patients who are sensitive to chemicals and gas fumes and when these are removed from their environment improvement can be remarkable. The term "total allergy syndrome" is valueless. These are patients with multiple sensitivities, so called "universal reactors," as described above, who are difficult to treat, and in whom immunological abnormalities have been found.2 Their symptoms are not all in the mind, and in environmental units as seen in the United States many of these patients return to normal health. We know little of what causes this syndrome but environmental factors are clearly important. Much work needs to be done before we have a clear understanding as to what is happening in possibly a considerable proportion of the population.”

"I Survived the Bhopal Gas Tragedy"

Sanjay Verma is an Indian activist fighting for those affected by the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy. He survived the disaster but was orphaned along with his sister and now deceased brother. [Source: Sanjay Verma, Al Jazeera, December 2014]

He wrote in Al Jazeera: “I was born in July 1984, and the disaster occurred in December that same year, so I was too young to remember anything from the night of the disaster. But, throughout the years, I have heard stories from the people who were old enough to remember. My sister seldom would tell me things about the night of the disaster, though we did not prefer to talk to each other about the night, as we knew that it would just hurt us.

“In middle school, we would have parent-teacher meetings at school; my classmates had their parents next to them for the meeting, but I had no one next to me. It was around that time that I started asking my sister about our parents. It was then that my sister first told me about the Bhopal gas disaster and what had happened that night. Until then, I never fully understood that I was growing up in an orphanage and didn't really know the meaning of the word "orphanage".

“My sister Mamta told me that there were four brothers and four sisters in our family. Our father was a carpenter, and I was the youngest in the family. We lost three sisters and two brothers along with our parents that night. “I then asked her, "How did we survive?" She told me that she wrapped me in a blanket, and ran away along with our brother Sunil. When they were running, Sunil had to go to the bathroom, and fainted. The streets were so crowded as people were running and shouting, my sister was forced by the crowd, and couldn't wait any longer for my brother Sunil to come back.

“The following morning, when people came to collect bodies from the street, they found Sunil and thought he was dead too. They put him on a truck with many bodies, and took him to dump into a river so that they could keep the number of deaths as low as possible. When it was my brother's turn to be thrown off the truck into the Narmada River, about 90 kilometers from Bhopal, he woke up and said, "I am not dead." The people who were about to throw him in got scared, thinking a dead body was talking to them.

“Mamta and Sunil took care of me and made sure I had everything. They were like parents to me. When it was no longer possible for them to pay for my education, a few charities helped with my tuition fees and I managed to pursue a higher education. In 1997, Sunil started having symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia, and was told by the doctors that it was happening because of the trauma he suffered after losing so many family members. Sunil tried to kill himself many times. Once he ate rat poison. He tried again by setting himself on fire. Once he ran into the jungle, hoping to die there. He failed every time. He succeeded in 2006 when he hung himself.

“So, now it is just Mamta and I - the only survivors from a family of 10. Mamta lives in Lucknow with her husband and two children, and I live here in Bhopal on my own. She would often complain about severe headaches and eye problems. “I had a stroke in 2005, and started taking an aspirin everyday. I also had a pulmonary embolism in the US last year. Now I no longer take an aspirin, because now I have to take 7.5mg of warfarin, a blood thinner, which is also used as rat poison.

Responsibility for Bhopal Disaster

No one has been held accountable for disaster, been punished or had to go to trial even though two years before the disaster Union Carbide’s own scientists warned of a “serious potential for sizable releases of toxic materials”. The company had no system to warn residents in case of an emergency even though the plant was built in a densely populated area and a number of safety measures intended to prevent a disaster had not been observed. Before the disaster safety and maintenance crews were cut at the plant because the pesticide was not selling well because of a drought.

To this day there is sharp disagreement as to what caused the accident. The Indian government claims it was negligence and poor management on the part of Union Carbide. Union Carbide claims it was sabotage by a disgruntled employee. Union Carbide did its best to avoid taking any kind of financial responsibility. One of its first actions was to convince an American judge the the case should be heard in India, where compensation payments are limited and U.S. executives can escape being put on trial.

Union Carbide was acquired by Dow Chemical Co. in 2001. Dow maintained that the legal case had been resolved through a 1989 settlement in which Union Carbide paid the Indian government $470 million and that responsibility for the former plant site rested with the government of Madhya Pradesh. The Indian government subsequently sought additional compensation, including a $1.7 billion claim mentioned in the 2011 proceedings. [Sources: Associated Press, June 7, 2010; Jeremy Page, The Times, June 7, 2010]

In 1999, Union Carbide made a profit of $5.6 billion. The same year its sold its interest in the Bhopal plant, which was closed after the disaster in 1984. Dow claims it had no responsibly for Union Carbide’s past actions. Little was done to clean up the site. When Union Carbide left it left behind 5,000 tons of chemicals, including puddles of mercury. Studies have shown the drinking water is contaminated.

Fate of Union Carbide CEO Warren Anderson

In 1991, an Indian court ordered Union Carbide executives, including the company’s 1984 CEO Warren Anderson, to face criminal charges. The executives failed to show up and were “proclaimed absconders” (“fugitives of justice”) and filed a claim with the United States for their extradition. The U.S. State department turned down the request in September 2004 but gave no explanation why.

Initially Anderson was praised for his courage in going to Bhopal four days after the accident, where he was immediately arrested. But after quickly paying bail, he never returned to face trial. In an interview with The New York Times five months after the tragedy, he spoke of his feelings of loss and helplessness. “You wake up in the morning thinking, can it have occurred?” he said. “And then you know it has and you know it’s something you’re going to have to struggle with for a long time.” The Indian government made multiple requests to extradite him, and officially labelled him a fugitive. A judge in India called him an “absconder.” [Source: Douglas Martin, New York Times, October 31, 2014]

According to the New York Times: After Bhopal, for the first time in his life, Anderson couldn’t sleep; at one point he holed up for a week at a hotel in Stamford, Connecticut. He and his wife, Lillian, spent evenings reading newspaper articles about the tragedy to each other. When they went to restaurants, he was afraid to be seen laughing because people “might not think it was appropriate,” he told The Times. “But he told The Associated Press that he was determined to find something positive in the darkness. Although he acknowledged that “people look at me and think I’m out of my mind to say that this may be a good event,” he envisioned the disaster leading to new safety procedures. In 2010, after the Indian executives of Union Carbide’s Bhopal subsidiary were convicted of negligence, a writer for rediff.com, an Indian news site, visited Anderson’s immaculately landscaped home in New York’s Hamptons. Reflecting Indian public opinion that he deserved punishment as the ultimate culprit, the writer imagined a future that never happened: “10 to 20 years in a dirty, overcrowded, rat-infested Indian prison.”

Bhopal Compensation

Union Carbide paid out a world record $470 million in compensation for the Bhopal disaster. The Supreme Court of India issued a decision on the matter in February 1989. There were 500,000 claimants for 3,350 of the people who died. The state of Maydar Pradesh took responsibility for cleaning up the site. Activists claim that compensation was much less than it should have been. It was based on 3,350 dead not 16,000 to 30,000 that are estimated to have died. The activists also object to the fact that agreement was made between Union Carbide and the government not between the company and the victims.

Much of this money never it found way to the victims because was still tied up in the courts and held by the Indian government while politician argued what should done with the money. As of 2000, a modern hospital funded by Union Carbide had not yet opened. In July 2004, the Indian Supreme Court ruled that $357 million in compensation should be distributed directly to victims and no longer held up in courts.

As off 2005 many of the survivors had still only received about $500 each. Those that had been promised $2,200 received about half that amount after middlemen took their cut. By the time that money arrived most victims had already spent more than that on medical treatments. Many families lost their breadwinners to illness caused by the disaster and had no income coming in.

The Bhopal disaster has been called one of the most glaring cases of a company in the developed country abusing people in the developing world and getting away with it. If the Bhopal disaster had occurred in the United States or another developed country there would be a better chance that the victims would be fairly compensated and the perpetrators brought to justice.

According to Amnesty International: “Union Carbide Corporation has repeatedly refused to face criminal charges of culpable homicide in India. The Dow Chemical Company, which bought UCC in 2001, has shown a similar arrogant disregard for the Indian legal system. The United States government has acted as a safe haven for UCC and Dow, ignoring its responsibility to ensure that US companies are held accountable for human rights abuses elsewhere in the world. Meanwhile, the Indian government itself has consistently underestimated the number of people who were killed or injured in the aftermath of the leak, and has also failed to ensure a clean-up of the factory site.”

Seven Bhopal-Era Union Carbide Employees Found Guilt of Negligence

In June 2010, an Indian court convicted seven former senior employees of Union Carbide India Ltd. of causing death by negligence in connection with the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster. The court also convicted Union Carbide India Ltd., the company that operated the pesticide plant. The seven former employees were sentenced to two years in prison and fined 100,000 rupees each, but they were released on bail pending appeals. The company was fined 500,000 rupees. [Sources: Associated Press, June 7, 2010; Jeremy Page, The Times, June 7, 2010]

The 2010 convictions followed more than 25 years of legal proceedings. Survivors and human-rights activists criticized the sentences as inadequate and argued that those responsible had not been held sufficiently accountable. Warren Anderson, the American head of Union Carbide at the time of the disaster, was among those originally charged but never appeared in the Indian proceedings. One of the Indian defendants had died before the 2010 verdict.

In May 2011, India’s Supreme Court rejected a government appeal seeking to restore stronger criminal charges against the seven convicted officials. The officials had originally faced charges of culpable homicide, but the Supreme Court had reduced the charges in 1996. The court ruled that the government had not adequately explained why it waited 14 years before seeking to reinstate the stronger charges. The ruling angered survivors and activists, who continued to demand stronger punishment and greater compensation.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, Lonely Planet Guides, Library of Congress, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, Compton’s Encyclopedia, The Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, AFP, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, The Economist, Foreign Policy, Wikipedia, BBC, CNN, and various books, websites and other publications.

Last updated August 2026