Survivors of the tragedy urge the Union Minister of Environment to end incineration trial runs of Union Carbide’s hazardous waste at Pithampur
BHOPAL – Leaders of four organisations of the survivors of the 1984 Union Carbide disaster in the Madhya Pradesh capital city have accused the state government’s Deputy Secretary of the Department of Bhopal Tragedy of making false representations before the state high court.
Addressing a joint press conference here on Friday, the leaders of the four organisations said in his affidavit, the official, KK Dubey, omitted critical information on the release of toxic chemicals during the recent incineration trial runs of Union Carbide’s hazardous waste at Pithampur, an industrial town near Dhar city which is part of the Indore Metropolitan Region.
Bano Bee of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmchari Sangh said, “The Madhya Pradesh High Court’s green light to continue with incineration of Union Carbide’s hazardous waste was obtained falsely. Expert opinion on the 300-page report on the trial incinerations makes it clear that the high court was deliberately kept uninformed of the leakage of anywhere between 5 to 20 kilograms of metallic mercury during the trial runs. As we know, exposure to mercury damages the brain, and it is so poisonous that according to the WHO, there are no safe limits of mercury exposure.”
According to Rachna Dhingra of the Bhopal Group for Information and Action, “Prof Asif Qureshi from IIT Hyderabad carried out a simple exercise of mass balance for mercury based on the information provided in the report and found that the incineration of 10 tonnes of hazardous waste caused the emission of 1.53 to 6.88 kgs of mercury. Shockingly, Dubey did not include this information in the affidavit submitted in the high court.”
Balkrishna Namdeo, president of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Nirashrit Pensionbhogee Sangharsh Morcha, said, “As Prof Qureshi has pointed out, well over 40 to 200 kg of mercury will be released due to the incineration of the 300 tonnes of Union Carbide’s hazardous waste. This toxic disaster of unprecedented scale has already begun in Pithampur”.
President of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangharsh Morcha, Nawab Khan, said, “We have written to the Union Minister of Environment calling for an end to the ongoing disaster in Pithampur. This can be done by making Union Carbide’s owner, Dow Chemical, carry the hazardous waste to the USA for safe disposal, as had been done for the mercury waste from Kodaikanal in Tamil Nadu in 2003. We are yet to know whether the minister will indeed take any steps, but we hope the high court will realise how Dubey has conned it in allowing the incineration of Union Carbide’s hazardous waste to proceed at Pithampur.”
The Union Carbide pesticide manufacturing factory had spewed nearly 40 tonnes of poisonous Methyl Isocyanate gas, exposing over 5,00,000 people to the toxic fumes in the intervening night of December 2-3, 1984. While 3,000 people had perished virtually instantly and over the years, more than 25,000 have kissed death, and the sad saga is continuing uninterruptedly. About half a million people are still suffering from the side effects of the poisonous gas, and several thousand people have been maimed for life.
