My heartfelt sympathies for all the victims – dead and alive.
The night of Dec 3rd 1984 changed the fate of nearly 500,000 people and the face of Bhopal industrial scenario. They are still hoping and waiting for things to get better. Hazardous gas Methyl Isocyanate (MIC) leaked from the pesticide plant of Union Carbide Company (UCC) killing thousands and leaving tens of thousands handicapped. That tragedy still haunts the people of Bhopal as the leak has contaminated the ground water. The chemical has made the water toxic for drinking to date and as a result there are a high percentage of children born with birth defects that stay with them for the rest of their lives.
Reasons for the accident are controversial to date, the stories of the workers of the plant and the management vary about what happened in the plant that night. Safety regulations were clearly violated. The location of the plant near densely populated area and lack of any disaster management in place made the situation worse. Lack of knowledge about the poisonous gas and the ways to deal with the exposure made it impossible for the government of India and Madhya Pradesh to deal with a disaster that affected so many lives. And the way the government chose to
investigate the incident raises many questions as they was very discreet about the information released and nothing was ever clearly disclosed about the findings of the investigation until the year 2003. Though the company involved UCC has accepted to pay the penalty for civil and criminal responsibility in the form of 470 million dollars as compensation to the victims, to date it has not disclosed the chemical composition of MIC, making it difficult to find a permanent solution to treat the drinking water.
It has been 25 years since the fatal accident and still everyday there is a new victim waiting for help thanks to the toxic water, but hope is still alive that someday this case file will be closed completely and justifiably. Every time there is a large scale tragedy be it Bhopal gas leak or any other natural disaster or terrorist attack of 26/11 in India, we fail time and again to respond in an effective way due to the lack of proper disaster management systems in place which could save many lives lost in vain. No proper measures seem to have ever been taken by authorities to implement a proper response system and conveniently this issue is forgotten once news
channels and newspapers stop reporting about the incident. Bhopal gas leak is a classic case to understand what happens in the absence of effective response system, proper implementation of safety regulations could have prevented this situation but we cannot stop natural disasters to happen though with proper planning we can save the lives of hundreds that would be affected. I think one way to give justice to the victims is to address the issue of proper disaster responsive system. It should be in place before something happens so that we will be well equipped to deal with the difficult situations and natural disasters.