No matter how much they wish it would, some things just don't go away.

[ambitious_wench]

Bhopal faces risk of 'poisoning'


By Paul Vickers
BBC News, Bhopal


Thousand of Indians around Bhopal remain at risk of poisoning 20 years after a major disaster in the city, an investigation by the BBC has revealed.

Four thousand people died after a gas leak at a pesticide factory owned by US company Union Carbide in 1984.

Union Carbide India Limited was responsible for cleaning up the site.

But thousands of tonnes of toxic waste are still stored around the plant in inadequate conditions, so chemicals leak into the town's water supply.

We took a sample of drinking water from a well near the site.

It had levels of contamination 500 times higher than the maximum limits recommended by the World Health Organisation.

The local people who drink this water every day are exposing themselves to a substantial chemical hazard associated, over time, with liver and kidney damage.

Union Carbide disputes the test results and says there was no evidence of ground water contamination outside the plant when they handed the site back to the state government in 1998.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/4010511.stm

Published: 2004/11/14 04:44:04 GMT

Comments

[adoka.livejournal.com]

I mean what else is Union Carbide going to say. There either is or isn't contamination from their plant, so they split hairs and try to shuck and jive because they know that the truth is that they are poisoning those folks there but just don't want to pay for it. Besides, they are just a bunch of backward poor brown people. So they won one lawsuit, that just means that the company has to try harder next time. They balance the costs of doing the right thing vs the risks of a costly lawsuit. Which ever is cheaper is the one that they go for. It isn't as if the board of directors or company officers or even the large share holders have to live there. It amazes me that people with a private sense of morality lose it when hiding in a corporation.