25 years on, Bhopal plant still a killer

Twenty-five years after the Bhopal gas tragedy, one of the biggest industrial disasters in history, the country’s pollution watchdog has found huge quantities of chemicals in underground water and soil in a 2.4-km radius of the Union Carbide factory, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Feb 7, 2010, 24:37:09 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Twenty-five years after the Bhopal gas tragedy, one of the biggest industrial disasters in history, the country’s pollution watchdog has found huge quantities of chemicals in underground water and soil in a 2.4-km radius of the Union Carbide factory.

During a study of 390 tonnes of toxins abandoned in the now-closed factory, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) discovered high levels of chloroform and benzene in underground water, mostly near residential colonies. It is the first time a government body has confirmed allegations of contamination around the site.

The contaminants can cause headache and nausea. Prolonged exposure can lead to respiratory distress and even coma.

“In some cases, the toxins were found to be several hundred times more than the permissible limits in drinking water,” said the report. The level of mercury in water, for instance, was 7995 parts per million (ppm). World Health Organisation standards prescribe that mercury in water should not be more than 0.1 ppm.

“The contamination is abnormally high,” said CPCB chairperson S.P. Gautam. “Toxins from chemicals in the factory would’ve seeped into the ground and reached the water table.”

Dow Chemicals representatives in India weren’t available for comment despite repeated attempts.

The company that bought Union Carbide 9 years ago denies culpability for the disaster.

Government statistics say 3,787 people died of the gas leakage from the Union Carbide factory in December 3, 1984. NGOs put the toll at 15,000. Around five lakh people were exposed to lethal methyl-isocyanate gas, leading to lifelong deformities.

Sunita Narain, director, CSE, said: “The study shows that the site is highly contaminated. The focus of the government is to dispose of the stored waste and ignore the site's contamination. This will not solve the environmental problems from emanating from the UCIL factory.”

In 2004, activist Alok Pratap Mehta filed a PIL in the Madhya Pradesh HC seeking to hold Dow Chemicals responsible for the pollution and the clean up.

On March 30, 2005, however, the court asked the Centre to ensure that the clean up job was done.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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