Bhopal Disaster Revisited [updated]

On December 3, 1984, a chemical plant run by Union Carbide and located in Bhopal, India released about 40 tons of a toxic gas which was an intermediate chemical used in creating pesticides. (That is, the plant was in the business of creating chemicals deadly to life.) Safety at the plant had not been a concern of management; numerous safety systems were offline or non-functional. The gas cloud drifted over the city and killed thousands of people, and inflicted permanent injury to hundreds of thousands more. It was the worst industrial accident to date. Today, the site remains a contaminated wasteland, unusable and never cleaned up. The survivors have been minimally compensated, but as time passes, enough of them have died that compensation may now be in the works. Update: 12/03 15:51 GMT by M : Whoops, just kidding, the Reuters story linked there is wrong; the BBC was apparently hoaxed into putting a Dow spokesman on TV who wasn't actually a Dow spokesman. Dow has no plans to clean up the facility and no plans to compensate the survivors. Hope this clears things up.

Comments

Re:On Regulation

[palion]

I completely agree. After all, most companies and countries have agreed that they have to reduce on greenhouse gases, they have to invest in alternative energies, they have to care for the social cost of their business much, much more. This is what makes me and many other people so optimistic about the future. The main problems are solved or at least there are plans underway to solve them.

Let's look forward to a bright future, which is good for both corporations and small people. A future which has education for all people, enough food for all, a clean environment for all and hope and health for all.

At least if they are Christians.

Otherwise let's bomb them back to the stone age.

Re:Why is this on Slashdot?

[Megaweapon]

So why isn't in the Science section? Note who posted this: Michael. This is just another case where Michael is using the Slashdot front page to rant. He's a big fan of corporation bashing.

Oh God

[eno2001]

Let the insane neocons come out of the wood work babbling about this being "the cost of doing business" in their twisted way. If there's anything I hate, it's the fucking neocons.