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By Bhopal Medical Appeal Office / February 1, 2019

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bhopalmedicalappeal Nov 22

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#bhopal40years

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bhopalmedicalappeal Nov 21

The 1984 Bhopal gas disaster – where the leakage of Methyl Isocyanate gas from a pesticide plant of an Indian subsidiary of Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) resulted in nearly 3,000 deaths instantly and over 20,000 since then – is an emblematic example of corporate impunity for gross negligence resulting in violations of human rights and environmental pollution. Forty years on, survivors have yet to receive adequate remedy for the harms they continue to suffer. Moreover, the abandoned factory site remains a source of toxic waste pollution and neither UCC nor Dow Chemical, which subsequently acquired UCC, have been held accountable.

What lessons could the world community learn from the Bhopal disaster, a development project aimed at achieving food self-sufficiency resulting in the worst industrial disaster in the history? How to ensure that hazardous technologies without adequate safeguards are not exported to developing countries? What needs to change in existing business models so that corporations do not apply inferior safety standards in the Global South? How to strengthen accountability of multinational corporations such as UCC for human rights abuses? What is the role of Dow Chemical and its investors to achieve effective remediation for the past and ongoing adverse impacts on human rights and the environment? How do international business and human rights standards deal with legacy issues linked to past corporate wrongs? This session will bring together survivors, human rights experts and academics to discuss such questions. The overarching goal is to draw lessons from the Bhopal disaster and consider effective ways to strengthen corporate accountability for human rights abuses, so as to ensure that industrial development projects do not undermine the pursuit of inclusive and sustainable development.

The session, as part of Development Dialogues, is co-organised by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to development, Amnesty International, the Bhopal Medical Appeal and the Institute for Human Rights and Business.

#bhopal #un #coporateaccountability #environment #developmentdialogues #bhopal40years

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bhopalmedicalappeal Nov 20

Brij Vihar colony is unusual in that it was constructed in a water contaminated area near the Union Carbide factory site after the initial water contamination was discovered and much of the infrastructural work already completed. Of the 80 families that settled there, nearly half have already left due the to lack of clean water. They have a 5,000-litre plastic tank for pumped fresh water, and a concrete bore well full of water known to be contaminated. One resident told us:

“When that investigating committee investigated the water here and found out how we are affected by the groundwater here, they gave us this 5,000-litre tank on a temporary basis.
This 5,000-litre tank is only for show. Water comes into this tank for just 10 minutes. Water comes for 10 minutes through a half-inch pipe. How can you fill a 5,000-litre tank? This is impossible.

Even to this date, we are drinking contaminated water and going through the most distressing times.”

Resident, Brij Vihar colony

#bhopal #bhopal40years #bma #water #watercontamination #justice4bhopal #charity

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bhopalmedicalappeal Nov 18

In the colonies that now have a fresh water supply, water comes in through a communal pipe for a single hour each day. Residents collect the fresh water in pots and vessels and store it for use until the water comes again. Without access to a tap in their home, those too unwell or too frail to carry water are completely reliant on relatives, friends or neighbours for help. And in some colonies like Brij Vihar, one hour of water through a small pipe is simply not enough for everyone.

#bhopal #Bhopal40Years #BMA #water #watercontamination #justice4bhopal #charity

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bhopalmedicalappeal Nov 13

Even once the pipelines for ‘fresh’ water to the contamination affected colonies were established, they remain plagued by infrastructure issues. Damage to pipes and taps, lack of supply, and cross-contamination with sewer water were all common problems that once again forced residents to make impossible choices – go thirsty or drink one kind of contaminated water or another.

#bhopal #Bhopal40Years #BMA #water #watercontamination #justice4bhopal #charity

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bhopalmedicalappeal Nov 11

Eventually, the State Government took action to develop the water infrastructure and provide piped water to taps in the contamination affected colonies. But some residents found the provision came with demands for money they could not afford to pay.

#bhopal #Bhopal40Years #BMA #water #watercontamination #justice4bhopal #charity

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bhopalmedicalappeal Nov 8

As far back as the 1970`s, before the gas leak of `84 had even happened, two large solar evaporation ponds were dug just North of the Union Carbide factory to contain the toxic liquid run-off from the site. Each year after the leak when the factory was abandoned, the monsoon flushed those poisons deeper and deeper into the earth. Throughout the 90`s and beyond, as the original survivors continued to fight for clean water, new colonies formed around these ponds. Those who settled their would soon learn that sitting on their doorstep were uncleaned pools of poison.

#bhopal #charity #BMA #water #watercontamination #justice4bhopal #Bhopal40years

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bhopalmedicalappeal Nov 6

Once the hand pumps were abandoned residents became reliant on tanks for water, but there was no pipeline infrastructure to refill the tanks. After years of protests and campaigns by survivors, the Supreme Court ordered the State Government to provide fresh water. To begin with this was done via fresh water deliveries from trucks. Still without a renewable source of fresh water, many residents were completely dependent upon deliveries or the supply from a single tank, sometimes waiting hours at any time of the day or night for fresh water. If there was no delivery or your turn came after the supply was exhausted, all that was left was well or pump water.

#bhopal #bhopal40years #bma #water #watercontamination #justice4bhopal #charity

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bhopalmedicalappeal Nov 4

Once the hand pumps were phased out residents were reliant upon water from concrete and plastic tanks that required regular re-filling. But the quality was still dangerously poor and irregular supply left many with no choice but to return to drinking water they now knew to be contaminated.

#Bhopal40Years #Bhopal #Justice4Bhopal #Water #WaterContamination #Charity #BMA

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bhopalmedicalappeal Nov 1

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bhopalmedicalappeal Oct 26

Over time the contamination spread further, reaching new colonies and more pumps. Residents in Nawab colony would collect their water from the hand pumps and bring it home in pots and vessels. To their dismay, they soon discovered the water left a strange yellow residue behind, in some cases eroding the very metal they were made from.

#Bhopal40Years #Bhopal #Justice4Bhopal #Water #WaterContamination #Charity #BMA

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bhopalmedicalappeal Oct 23

Following the discovery of the contamination present in the existing wells the farmers and residents of JP Nagar had been using for decades, new hand pumps were installed. But they soon discovered the water from these was no better and began to paint them red to warn others they were not safe to drink from.

#Bhopal40Years #Bhopal #Justice4Bhopal #Water #WaterContamination #Charity #BMA

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bhopalmedicalappeal Oct 22

The colony of JP Nagar is directly South of the factory walls, and the residents there were some of the first to realise that there were problems with their drinking water. It would be years before studies would finally confirm that the same chemicals in the gas that devastated the community years earlier were now indeed present in the water they depended upon for survival.

#bhopal40years #bhopal #justice4bhopal #water #watercontamination #charity #BMA

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bhopalmedicalappeal Oct 18

Over the years since it become clear that Carbide’s toxins had contaminated the water supply in Bhopal, the survivors have campaigned tirelessly for clean water. Water-affected communities began staging protests to raise awareness about the contamination and secure help from the Madhya Pradesh State Government. When these actions were ignored, survivor organisations used the results of the water studies undertaken by Greenpeace in 1999 and others to bring a case for the provision of clean water before the Indian courts.

In 2004, after more than a decade of campaigning, the Supreme Court of India ruled that the Central Government must provide a source of clean water to residents in affected communities. Responsibility for the delivery of clean water was ultimately passed back to the State Government of Madhya Pradesh. When, after two years had passed and nothing had been done, the survivor groups once again took action.

In 2006, dozens of survivors of all ages embarked upon a padayatra, an epic people’s march of more than 400 miles, from Bhopal to the seat of the Indian Parliament in Delhi, to confront then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and demand the safe water they had been promised. They left with assurances that once again amounted to empty promises. In 2008, they marched again, this time coupled with hunger strikes.

By 2009, thanks to the tireless activism of campaigners, plastic water tanks were finally delivered to most neighbourhoods known to be affected at that time. Initially filled by deliveries from water trucks, infrastructure was later developed to provide free piped water from surrounding lakes and reservoirs directly to the tanks.
However, into the present day the supply is unreliable, tank capacity inadequate, pipes are prone to damage, and communities have been plagued by infrastructure issues. Many in these poor communities are still forced to return to drinking water they know to be contaminated when the clean supply runs out.

#bhopal40years #bhopal #justice4bhopal #water #watercontamination #charity #BMA

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bhopalmedicalappeal Oct 16

Just five years after the gassing of Bhopal, Union Carbide conducted secret tests and learned that its factory site was lethally contaminated. Water from the site, and water in which soil had been soaked produced instant 100% mortality in fish. The places where the samples had been taken were often just inside the boundary wall and on the other side people were living, drawing water from wells and stand pipes.

Carbide did not notify local communities of the risks to drinking water. Nor did it lift a finger to clean up the contamination. Instead, it attacked as “troublemakers” those in the community who voiced their worries that the factory was poisoning their water. The contaminated water crisis was not exposed to the world until @greenpeace ran a series of tests in 1999, confirming the presence of toxins and heavy metals in the water in quantities hundreds or thousands of times above safe levels.

In 2009, two further studies were released which drew a more up-to-date picture of the contamination, one by the Bhopal Medical (BMA) Appeal, on behalf of the Sambhavna Trust Clinic in Bhopal; and the other by the Pollution Monitoring Laboratory (PML) of The Centre for Science and Environment, @cseindia , a non-governmental organization based in New Delhi.

These studies and others confirmed the toxins continue to spread, reaching new communities and more people with every year that passes. The number of communities where groundwater has been contaminated increased from 14 in 2004 to 22 in 2012, and to 42 in 2017. Groundwater in 29 more colonies is suspected to be contaminated as per a recent study, bringing the total to 71.

#Bhopal40Years #Bhopal #Justice4Bhopal #Water #WaterContamination #Charity #BMA

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bhopalmedicalappeal Oct 14

On the evening of December 2nd this year, shortly after midnight, 40 years will have passed since 40 tonnes of deadly gas escaped malfunctioning tank E610 in a Union Carbide factory on the outskirts of Bhopal and blew across the city, leaving thousands dead and hundreds of thousands injured. The gas burned eyes, choked lungs, and was carried through the bloodstream to every major organ in the bodies of those that drank it in. For the survivors this would mark the beginning of four decades of struggle in which they would never see fair compensation or justice for the perpetrators. This is the story of Bhopal, one which for many of you will by now be sadly familiar.

But there is another part of the story, one that starts in the years before that night and has been no less devastating to the health and livelihood of those living around the factory. For years before the leak, as the factory churned out pesticides to kill insects, toxic waste was being secretly and silently buried in pits in and around the factory grounds. Three solar evaporation ponds were dug to contain the liquid run-off. After the horror of that night the factory gates were closed forever, leaving behind a slowly rusting skeleton filled with tanks and bottles of toxic chemicals and ponds still brimming with poisons. In the years that followed, all these toxins would slowly seep deeper into the earth, contaminating wells, pumps, and ultimately the drinking water of tens of thousands of people. Year after year, this toxic legacy continues to spread in a slowly expanding circle of contamination.

In the run-up to this year’s 40th anniversary, we want to share the thoughts of just a few of those who have lived through this second, toxic legacy of the world’s worst industrial disaster in their own words. If you would like to support them, please share these posts and help spread the word: Bhopal still needs our help.

#bhopal40years #bhopal #justice4bhopal #water #watercontamination #charity #BMA

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