Bhopal, December 1
Bhopal gas leak victims demanded an immediate scientific assessment of environmental pollution caused by the tragedy three decades ago.
Social activist Satinath Sarangi, who has been working for the victims, said a scientific assessment of air, water and ground quality should be done to address the situation.
“We have sought help from the United Nations Environment Programme for a comprehensive scientific assessment of toxicity so that there can be a strategy for clean-up and an assessment of the amount of damage for which Dow Chemical should be liable,” Sarangi said.
Activists want the waste should be removed from the area. They said the authorities, who now own the site, had fumbled on taking action —either by clearing up the waste itself or in pursuing Union Carbide to
take responsibility.
Now, as US President Barack Obama will visit India for the Republic Day celebrations, the activists say the American government should apologise and demand extradition of John Macdonald, secretary of Union Carbide.
“We demand an apology from the American government for the Bhopal gas tragedy victims who did not get justice since the past three decades," Sarangi said.
Built in 1969, the Union Carbide plant in Madhya Pradesh was seen as a symbol of a new industrialised India, generating thousands of jobs for the poor and at the same time, manufacturing cheap pesticides for millions of farmers.
Fifteen years later, 40 tonnes of Methyl Isocyanate gas was released and carried by the wind killed thousands in Bhopal. The government recorded 5,295 deaths, but activists claim 25,000 people died in the aftermath and following years.
Union Carbide CEO Warren Anderson, who left the country soon after the disaster, was sought by the government here which had called for his extradition from the US. Anderson died in September, aged 92. — ANI