Thirty years on, the Union Carbide gas leak continues to poison lives in Bhopal

By Euronews

Published on 02/12/2014 - 11:04

In 1984 a pesticide leak from a factory owned by US chemical company Union Carbide killed thousands in the Indian city of Bhopal. Thirty years on

In 1984 a pesticide leak from a factory owned by US chemical company Union Carbide killed thousands in the Indian city of Bhopal.

Thirty years on people continue to die, with cancer rates and foetal abnormalities high.

For the populace, suffering is a fact of life and the fight for justice and compensation continues.

Since 1984 Heera Bai has looked out on a different world: “It feels like I have cobwebs in my eyes, I don’t have light in my eyes and walking is difficult.”

Union Carbide paid out $470 ml in Union Carbide paid out $470 million in compensation in 1989, but activists claim that 90 percent of victims received just $500.

Satinath Sarangi represents the victims and their families:
“Both governments and NGO’s have shown that up to three and a half kilometres around the factory and 20 metres underground are chemicals that cause serious problems, cancer, birth defects, still nothing has been done.”

In 2010 seven low-level Indian officials were found guilty of “death by negligence” and “culpable homicide not amounting to murder” and sentenced to two years in prison.

Not a single high-level American manager has faced justice.

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