BHOPA, 3 December 2004L — A series of torchlight rallies and vigils were held after darkness fell yesterday as victims and activists jointly commemorated a night of horror 20 years ago when lethal gas leaked from a pesticide plant and killed thousands.
A seminar, “No more Bhopal — Detoxification for a Toxic & MNC’s free India” by an NGO Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udhyog Sangathan in collaboration with other NGOs, was also held on Thursday to highlight the issue.
In the Shajahani Park around 300 people — victims or relatives of those who died — gathered with burning flame torches at sunset.
Before setting off on a march, they were addressed by Abdul Jabbar, chairman of the Bhopal Gas Affected Women’s Industry Organization, who railed against the Indian government and against the US company which owned the killer plant.
After lighting torches, the victims — mostly women widowed by the gas leak — marched for about a kilometer toward the now derelict factory shouting slogans like “Death to Union Carbide!” and “Union Carbide, quit India!” before returning to the park to disperse.
Seventeen-year-old Tahir Khan said his mother had sent him to the protest as a tribute to his father, who died due to the after-effects of inhaling the toxic fumes.
At another park in the Newmarket area of Bhopal, around 100 people gathered for a silent commemoration before leading a small torchlight procession.
More than 3,500 people died during and immediately after the accident, in which about 40 tons of methyl isocyanate leaked out of the plant soon after midnight on Dec. 3, 1984.
According to government figures the total death toll from the tragedy in the past two decades is about 15,000, but local victims’ rights activists say the figure is double that.
Amnesty International in a report Monday said 22,000-25,000 people had died in the accident.
Earlier in the day, participants of a seminar demanded that Dow Chemicals, which took over Union Carbide in 2001, pay the medical expenses of the 800,000 injured in the gas leak.
They also urged Dow to clean up the site that activists say contains thousands of tons of toxic chemicals.
Also steps have been taken by the Indian government finally remove the waste from the site. “New Delhi has asked the Engineers India Limited (EIL) to survey the Union Carbide plant to determine how much toxic waste there is on the site and how it can be disposed off,” said Uma Shankar Gupta, a local minister in charge of relief for victims of the tragedy.
But global rights group Greenpeace said the steps were not enough.
Experts meanwhile said that more harmful toxic wastes could be destroyed at the modern incinerators at Gujarat and Maharashtra and harmful wastes and soil should be buried deep at suitable sites. A case regarding this is pending with the Bhopal High Court.
