A letter from Bhopal (to Union Carbine
shareholders)
The Story of One Sunday
Evening
December 2-3, 1984
At about 10:30 pm during routine maintenance operations in the
methyl isocyanate (MIC) plant of Union Carbide Corporation in
Bhopal, a large quantity of water entered one of the storage
tanks through leaking valves and corroded pipes. This triggered a
runaway reaction in tank E - 610 containing 60 tonnes of MIC - a
lethal chemical with a Threshold Limit Value of 0.02 ppm. The
reaction produced enormous heat and pressure and 40 tonnes of a
deadly cocktail of MIC, hydrogen cyanide, monomethyl amine,
carbon monoxide and possibly 20 other chemicals that spewed forth
in the form of dense clouds. Safety systems (that were, in any
case, incapable of preventing a runaway reaction) were either
switched off, malfunctioning or under repair. A cold and gentle
northerly wind carried the clouds over half a million sleeping
people. The poison cloud moved like a wall 20 to 30 feet high
hugging the ground. By one in the morning an entire city had been
turned into a gas chamber.
The siren at the factory had been deliberately shut off so people
came to know of the leak only when the poison clouds surrounded
them. They woke up coughing, gasping for breath, with their eyes
burning like fire. People ran, entire families, holding babies in
their arms and little children running alongside. The force of
the human torrent of a city trying to escape wrenched children's
hands from their parents. People lost control of their bodies.
Urine and feces ran down their legs. Some began vomiting
uncontrollably, were wracked with seizures and fell dead. The
gases caused people's lungs to produce so much fluid that it
filled their lungs. They drowned in their own body fluids.
Doctors at Bhopal's hospitals, besieged by dying people, did not
know how to treat them. They called Union Carbide's medical
officer who said that the gas was akin to tear gas. "All you
need to do is wash with water," he said. Meanwhile, the
hospital mortuary was overflowing. Graveyards and cremation
grounds were unable to cope with the flow and for the next three
nights and days mass burials and cremations went on non-stop in
different parts of the city. The number of casualties in the
immediate aftermath will never be known with certainty, but the
most conservative estimates by independent agencies suggest that
over 8000 men, women and children were killed within the first
three days. The Indian Council of Medical Research, a government
agency, concluded that over 520,000 exposed persons had poisons
circulating in their bloodstream that caused damage to almost all
the systems in the body.
THE STORY OF ONE OF THE HALF MILLION SURVIVORS
I was sleeping with my
three children Nazma, Shareef and Iqbal beside me. I woke up with
a panic because it felt like some one was choking me. The room
was filled with pungent smoke. I thought some one was burning
chillies to ward off the evil eye. The smoke got heavier and
heavier. My husband and children too got up and started coughing.
The children were groaning that they could not bear it. So we
carried the children in our arms and joined the surging crowd
outside, all trying to get away. People were running blindly.
Many were falling down. By then my eyes had become so swollen
that I could hardly open them. I had my dupatta [shawl] covering
my eyes. I was carrying four year old Nazma and my husband was
carrying Shareef who was six and Iqbal who was two years old. I
had gone a little distance when Nazma started making gurgling and
choking sounds. I pried my eye lids open and saw there was froth
coming out of her mouth. I looked around but could not find my
husband. So I went inside the nearest house I could spot and
asked for some water for Nazma to drink.
In the morning my eldest brother came to fetch me. He took me to
the dispensary at the Carbide factory. There they put some drops
in my eyes, that's all. My husband who had been looking for me
with the children also reached my brother's place. After four
days we went back to our own home. The children could not keep
any food in, they were vomiting all the time. My eldest son
Shareef died after three months. We tried everything to save his
life. Took him to different doctors, spent a lot of money but he
didn't survive. Three months after that I gave birth to a son. We
named him Yosouf. He was born sickly and had strange looking
yellow coloured eruptions on his neck. When he was about a year
old, I was still breast feeding him, he died in his sleep.
Another daughter was born to me - Shahbano. She too was sick all
the time, we lost her too. My son Iqbal is not growing properly,
he is 16 years old now but looks like he is 10 or 12. My husband
used to carry cement bags before the gas, but he hasn't been able
to work. Both of us have this burning in the chest. We went to
different private clinics as long as our savings lasted. Doctors
charged 50 to 100 rupees for every visit. When we had no money
left we had to go the government hospitals. But visiting
government hospitals was so tiring and it seemed like a waste of
time. The doctors there would write down the medicines we were
supposed to take before we even finished telling them about our
problems. The tablets they gave me made me feel worse.
In my family I am the only one to get any compensation. I got Rs
15,000/- [about $350]. We spent much more than that on our
treatment. I sold off all my jewelry when my son got admitted to
the hospital. Also we borrowed a lot of money for our treatment.
When I told the judge about our children who died he said I had
to get documentary evidence.
All of us in the family remain sick. My husband has spells of
unconsciousness. He has also become very irritable and some times
gets violent. We could not send our children to school because
there was no money. My daughter was so keen to go to school. I
worry myself all the time - about my husband, my son's health, my
daughter's marriage.
- Hajra Bi, from Ayub Nagar, Bhopal
For the last fifteen years we in Bhopal
have been suffering deaths and incurable diseases from the
exposure to methyl isocyanate and other gases from your company's
factory in our city. Today there are more than 120,000 survivors
in Bhopal who have not known any respite from illness since the
disaster and are in desperate need of medical attention. 15 years
later, 10 to 15 people die every month from exposure-related
illnesses. Doctors in Bhopal still do not know the proper
treatment for the many exposure-related illnesses.
Breathlessness, persistent cough, diminished vision, early-age
cataracts, loss of appetite, menstrual irregularities, recurrent
fever, neurological disorders, fatigue, weakness, anxiety and
depression are the most common symptoms among us survivors. The
best treatments provide only temporary relief, if any. The Bhopal
Hospital Trust set up by your company is as much in the dark as
any of us. We find that many of the drugs being used by the
clinics set up by this trust are potentially causing more harm
than good to us. One of the major reasons for the lack of proper
treatment in Bhopal is that Union Carbide continues to withhold
information on the composition of the leaked gases and their
effect on human beings. Senior officials of your company claim
that medical information on the leaked gases are "trade
secrets".
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