From Bhopal to BP

[cory777]

Source: Truthdig

In the predawn hours of a December day 26 years ago a poison crept through a city of more than 650,000 souls, and soon many who inhaled the gas were dead. In addition to those who died directly from the fumes, others were fatally trampled in the panic that swept the area.

The estimates of the number who perished vary widely. One official source put initial deaths at nearly 3,000 and subsequent deaths at nearly 15,000; permanent disabilities were set at 50,000.

The toxin that attacked Bhopal, India, on that morning in 1984 was released accidentally from a pesticide plant owned by an Indian subsidiary of Union Carbide. Roughly 40 metric tons of a lethal chemical wafted into sleeping homes to be breathed by perhaps half a million people. The discharge occurred after water entered a tank of methyl isocyanate and created a runaway reaction that raised the temperature within the container to nearly 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

From time to time some element of the calamity’s aftermath was reported in the Western press, but before long the accident was mostly forgotten—but certainly not by the thousands who had been blinded or afflicted with cancer, respiratory ailments, neurological conditions or other medical troubles. Other people’s problems, especially when they occur in the faraway Third World, tend to have a short stay in the higher parts of our brains, chock-full of our own troubles big and small.



Read more: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/from_bhopal_to_bp_20100622/?ln

[dipsydoodle]

1. Current mention of this is almost solely as a result of the Gulf catasrophe

I searched back through DU and only relevant links were in 2008 which provided this link from 1994 :
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/18/opinion/l-carbide-got-off-easy-in-bhopal-disaster-141348.html

and one foprm late 2009 which provided this one : http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/31/warren-anderson-arrest-warrant

It is a sad situation when concern is only shown about an adverse event when used in comparison with an equally sad event.

[Scuba]

2. Corporations murder with impunity...

...while pot smokers sit in prison cells.

[Mopar151]

3. Actually, they murder with mediocracy and beauracy

I'm a former employee of Praxair corporation, one of Union Carbide's 'successor companies"

"Praxair - business is BOOMIN'!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNfHVSBNJ_Y

[Nihil]

4. Aint that the truth ...

> Other people’s problems, especially when they occur in the faraway
> Third World, tend to have a short stay in the higher parts of our brains,