Disaster has lasting impact in Bhopal

BHOPAL, India — It was five minutes past midnight on Dec. 3, 1984, when 40 tons of poisonous gas burst from a storage tank at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal. Silently, it seeped out over this former Muslim principality in the heart of India, a royal city once revered for its art and poetry.

Within minutes, tens of thousands would be clawing at their throats and putting palms to their frothing mouths and bleeding eyes, stumbling through the dark alleyways, crying for help.

“We all started running toward the train station,” recalls Suman Kushawa, 8 years old at the time. She got separated from her mother, father and three brothers as they fled.

“They all died on the way,” whispers the orphan, today a mother of two, who still cries for her parents and can barely speak of that night.

Thousands collapsed on the roads, their lungs burning as if rubbed raw with chilies. Some choked on their own vomit. Others were trampled by cows, run over by trucks.

Many simply prayed: “Allah, give me death.”

Thousands did die, though just how many has never been clear.

Those who survived were condemned to a life of gruesome memories, medical ordeals and a fight for justice many believe has been denied by U.S. chemical giants.

As the 20th anniversary of the tragedy approaches, survivors are gaining ground in their demand for financial and environmental compensation.

But other Bhopalis want to put the tragedy behind them, shed their city’s anguished image and reinvent Bhopal as another of India’s booming business hubs.

“There’s no sense in repeating our history over and over. We just need to catch up with the pace of the world,” said Jagjeet Singh, who works at an outsourcing center in Bhopal, transcribing dictation from American doctors via the Internet. “If we stay stuck on that one issue, we’ll never make any progress.”

World’s worst industrial disaster

Bhopal is a microcosm of India today. Many of the city’s 1.8 million residents live in slums and earn less than a dollar a day, while middle-class Indians race headlong into a 21st century of unprecedented opportunity.

“Everything you see in India is contained in the Bhopal saga. Essentially, it’s the story of survival against all odds,” said Satinath Sarangi, director of the Sambhavna Trust Clinic, which offers free health care for gas victims.

The Bhopal gas leak was the world’s worst industrial disaster. U.S. chemical company Union Carbide Corp. insists the tragedy was due to sabotage by a disgruntled employee and not shoddy safety standards or faulty plant design, as claimed by many activists.

“The plant produced pesticides for use in India to help the country’s agricultural sector increase its productivity and contribute more significantly to meeting the food needs of one of the world’s most heavily populated regions,” Union Carbide says on its Web site.

Union Carbide, which was acquired by Dow Chemical in 2001, claims that 3,800 people were killed. Indian officials say 10,000 to 12,000 people were killed, while Bhopal activists and health workers say more than 20,000 people have died over the years due to gas-related illnesses, such as lung cancer, kidney failure and liver disease.

Indian officials estimate that nearly 600,000 more have become ill or had babies born with congenital defects over the last 20 years.

A Bhopal hospital for gas victims, funded in part by a trust Union Carbide created, believes 500,000 people still suffer from gas-related illnesses and have traces of the toxic methyl isocyanate gas in their bloodstreams.

Women’s menstrual cycles are irregular and some children are still born with deformities or congenital diseases. According to a study published last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association, some boys born to those women have smaller heads.

Adil Bee, born seven years after the disaster, stopped growing after his third birthday. His neck never quite took form. His gnarled feet are turned inward, forcing him to scoot around on his knees. Thirteen-year-old Adil cannot speak; his mother can only cry when asked how long he is expected to live.

“The doctors told me not to expect anything from him,” said Raisa Bee, 45, who received 25,000 rupees ($543) for Adil’s medical care.

Adil’s aunt, Rashida Bee, is a Bhopal activist. She and neighbor Champa Devi Shukla received the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, awarded earlier this year, for their dogged pursuit of Union Carbide. For years, they’ve been organizing protests and demanding UC and Dow be held accountable for the cleanup.

Some want to close the book

Smita Sooraj, 25, works at Bhilwara Scribe, an outsourcing center whose motto is “Proud to be Indian; Privileged to be Global.”

Sooraj is among many Bhopalis who want to close the book on the tragedy.

“The Bhopalis are not as poor as you think,” she said, taking a break from transcribing medical records. “And you can find people from all over India — each caste, every religion, so many customs and cultures. We’re all working united, to build this beautiful city up again.”

Rajendra Kothari, state director of the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which represents dozens of chambers of commerce in northern India, insists Bhopal is poised for resurrection with a pool of skilled workers. He said the continued demands by the victims, though valid, have held them back.

Bhopal is “one of the growing, vibrant cities of India,” Kothari said, but it is “is only known for tragedy.”

Kothari said Bhopal business leaders are pragmatists and don’t expect anything more from Union Carbide. But they do wonder why Washington has not established some industries in the city blemished by an American company.

“Such a large accident does bear the moral responsibility of the U.S. government,” he said, “and a healthy economics always is a great healing touch.”

Bhopal exports about 35 billion rupees ($761 million) in manufacturing goods yearly, Kothari said, but a city of its size should be producing three times that much.

“If Union Carbide had not happened,” he said, “Bhopal would have grown much faster.”

‘I feel an obligation to succeed’

But Union Carbide did happen, and 21-year-old Sanjay Verma will never forget.

He lost his parents, three brothers and two sisters, leaving his older brother and sister to be reared in an orphanage. His brother, 36-year-old Sunil, has tried to kill himself three times. Verma has managed to move ahead, perhaps because he has no memory of the ghastly night.

Verma excelled in school, earning a university scholarship. He’s now studying commerce, hoping to become a chartered accountant.

“I feel an obligation to succeed, for my brother and sister, who played the role of my parents at the time,” said Verma.

He says he’s like all other Indian youth, planning a better life for himself and the next generation.

He is not waiting for another handout. But he also cannot escape his destiny, forced on him one night, before he had learned to walk.

He and another Bhopal gas orphan were flown to Paris by Greenpeace in September to crash a fashion show by Dow Chemical — launching its new fiber, XLA — and unfurl a banner to remind the world that 20 years later, Bhopal gas victims will not be silenced.

“We are still fighting for justice,” Verma said. “And we will fight until we get it.”