Forty years after one of the world’s deadliest industrial disasters struck the Indian city of Bhopal, cleanup efforts have finally begun to remove hundreds of tons of toxic waste from the site.
But local campaigners have accused the Indian government of greenwashing, saying the 337 tonnes of waste removed this week was less than 1% of the more than 1 million tonnes of hazardous material left behind after the disaster, and that the cleanup was not chemical He claimed that it was of no use in combating substances. Local contamination.
Protests have also arisen over concerns that incinerating waste will only cause further pollution and exposure to toxic substances in other areas.
Around midnight on December 2, 1984, the Union Carbide chemical plant in Bhopal exploded, releasing 40 tons of toxic methyl isocyanate and other deadly gases into the atmosphere.
More than 3,000 people died in the immediate aftermath, and it is estimated that at least 25,000 people died overall.
Local groups say the real number is probably much higher due to the long-term effects of the toxic gas, including high rates of cancer, kidney and lung disease. In recent years, many babies have been born stillborn or with severe disabilities to mothers affected by the gas.
Despite the scale of the industrial disaster, adequate work to remove all toxic waste from Bhopal was also undertaken by the American company Union Carbide, now part of Dow Chemicals, which was the majority owner of the plant at the time. It has never been carried out. Or because the Indian government regained control of the land where the factory was located.
Human rights groups have accused U.S. companies and the Indian government of trying to downplay the lasting impact of Bhopal’s untouched chemical debris.
An official investigation submitted to the court found that pollution, including highly toxic heavy metals and organic pollutants banned by the United Nations, has spread to at least 42 areas in Bhopal. Testing near the site found levels of carcinogenic chemicals in the groundwater to be 50 times higher than levels deemed safe by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Lethal levels of toxic waste have also been found in plant pits and festering open ponds where waste was dumped by the Union Carbide plant before the explosion.
Campaigners have been fighting for years to hold Union Carbide and Dow Chemicals accountable for the costs of cleaning up and safely removing the waste, a process that has cost hundreds of millions of dollars or more. The US company has always denied liability, citing a 1989 settlement with the Indian government.
Initially seen as progress, the Madhya Pradesh High Court last month ordered authorities to finally take responsibility for chemical waste, criticizing the inertia of the past four decades and saying the government was “waiting for another tragedy”. I asked him if he was thinking about it.
However, while the government has now removed 337 tonnes of surface waste that had already been containerized and moved to warehouses in 2005, activists say this is no longer a serious threat and is contributing to groundwater contamination. claims that it is not.
Rachna Dhingra, coordinator of the International Justice Campaign in Bhopal, called the move “a farce and a greenwashing publicity stunt to remove just a fraction of the least hazardous waste” and said the union – Questioned why Carbide and Dow Chemicals were not held accountable.
She said: “1.1 million tonnes of toxic waste still seeps into the ground every day and they refuse to treat it. We can’t see birth defects and chronic health conditions with our own eyes. This will only take heat away from the government and do nothing to help the people of Bhopal, who have been considered expendable for decades. yeah.”
Mr Dhingra was also highly critical of the government’s decision to incinerate the removed waste at a factory in Pithampur, 150 miles away. The factory had previously failed tests to safely carry out such work, exposing local residents to high levels of toxins.
The incineration is expected to take about six months and will produce 900 tonnes of toxic residue, which will be buried in a landfill. The move sparked massive protests by the people of Pithampur who feared further exposure to toxic substances and leakage of waste into groundwater.
Swatantra Kumar Singh, head of the Bhopal government’s gas disaster relief and rehabilitation department, denied any risk of contamination to the local ecosystem and said the waste would be disposed of in an environmentally safe manner. Ta.
Many local residents and human rights groups believe the Bhopal disaster is a continuing miscarriage of justice. A 1989 settlement awarded most victims 25,000 rupees (about $500 at the time), but most who developed related illnesses or died years later received nothing.
Of the nine Indian officials convicted in 2010 for their roles in the disaster, none have served time in prison, and Dow Chemicals has said in court that Union Carbide’s Indian subsidiary will buy out its parent company. He has maintained that he is not criminally responsible for his previous actions. company.
Activists have accused the US government of blocking efforts to extradite executives from Union Carbide and Dow Chemicals to stand trial in India over failures that led to the explosions.
