Bhopal, India: As toxic clouds of smoke rose over the Indian city of Bhopal four decades ago after midnight, the gas goddess was born, gasping for every breath.
On the night of December 2, 1984, her feeble moans were drowned out by the screams of men, women and children fleeing to escape the cloud of highly toxic gas emanating from the Union Carbide factory.
About 3,500 people were killed in the immediate aftermath, and an estimated 25,000 people died in total in the world’s deadliest industrial disaster. Forty years later, horror continues to wreak havoc on the lives of people like Devi — as well as countless others born with the ugliness since that fateful night.
Devi, a daily wage labourer, has constant chest pains, one of her lungs is not fully developed and she is constantly sick. “My life is a living hell,” Devi told AFP, speaking in her shack in Bhopal, capital of the central state of Madhya Pradesh.
Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t forget the night she was born. “My parents named me Gus,” she said, her eyes welling up. “I believe the name is a curse. I wish I had died that night.” Twenty-seven tons of methyl isocyanate (MIC), used in the manufacture of pesticides, from tanks storing the deadly chemical. A city of more than two million people was swept away, after the concrete casing of the Ek collapsed.
As the white cloud of MIC engulfed the areas near the factory, people started falling into the streets. “People were foaming at the mouth. Some had defecated, some were choking on their own vomit,” Soni said.
With a handkerchief tied over his nose, Soni used his pushcart to take his crying neighbors, many of them children, to the hospital. Rashida Mukhi, co-founder of the Changari Trust charity, which provides free treatment to children of gas-affected families, believes the dead were lucky.
“At least their misery is over,” he said. “Unfortunate are those who survive.” Her trust has admitted more than 150 children with cerebral palsy, hearing and speech impairment and other disabilities this year alone.
She blames the crash and groundwater contamination for the breakdowns. In the past, groundwater testing near the site found cancer- and birth-defect-causing chemicals 50 times higher than what is recognized as safe by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
“This tragedy shows no signs of ending,” said Rashida, 68, who has lost several family members since the accident. Lost to cancer. “The soil and water here are polluted — that’s why babies are still being born with deformities.” Campaigners say Union Carbide, which was acquired by Michigan-based Dow Chemical Co. in 2001, has avoided much of the disaster. Chemical waste was thrown as usual years ago.
Large evaporation ponds outside the factory were filled with thousands of liters of liquid waste. Toxins seeped into the soil and into water supplies to many neighborhoods. Dow Chemical did not respond to AFP’s request for comment.
Taslim Bano, 48, is convinced of the link between the plant and congenital diseases. During the birth of her son Muhammad Salman, her limbs were ripped off. “His twin brother died in the womb. Salman survived but he couldn’t speak a word until he was six,” she said, showing off her son’s braces that help him stand up. .