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Bhopal: Walking Away from Disaster

There can't be enough condemnation of Dow / Carbide for the havoc they created in Bhopal, India, way back in 1984. Yes, 25 years ago - and the legacy lingers, as this report in the Charleston sunday gazette-mail.com so graphically reports in "Bhopal residents bring MIC warnings":

"Sarita Malviya wasn't born when an explosion at a Union Carbide chemical plant in Bhopal, India, on Dec. 3, 1984, sent a cloud of deadly gas containing the compound methyl isocyanate into the old section of the city, searing the lungs and causing the deaths of at least 4,000 people.

When her family moved to Bhopal years after the world's worst industrial disaster, "we had no idea that Union Carbide left toxic waste in three ponds," she said through an interpreter.

Heavy metals and toxins were seeping into the groundwater, she said, contaminating drinking water used by 30,000 people, including members of her family.

"Now, all my family has medical problems," she said. "The skin peels off my hands every four or five weeks, and my hands are always sweaty and cold."

Two years ago at the age of 14, she became a founding member of Children Against Dow/Carbide, an organization trying to force the former chemical giant and the company that bought it to fix lingering environmental problems and fund the study of related public health issues."

Continue reading here. Is it any wonder that the general populace is sceptical of Big Business?

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