Pictures of the 'clean up' below and also here
(higher resolution images are available)

Politician in charge still denies there is a problem

Uma Shankar Gupta, the out-of-touch politician charged with the welfare of Bhopal survivors is still insisting to incredulous journalists that the bungled clean up is not causing a problem. Below: Uma Shankar Gupta, with Alok Pratap Singh, a man widely believed by survivors to be a stooge of Dow Chemical. For an account of yet another incompetent press conference, see our Opinion blog.

Local communities
suffer poisoning

Local resident Noorjahan, 35, was rushed to hospital with acute respiratory distress. A six month old baby was among those needing medical attention after the clean-up by Ramki Ltd sent clouds of poison dust over their neighbourhoods.

Women enter the Carbide factory to demand from Mr Rao of Ramki that the work should be conducted safely, and that they and their families should not be put at risk. Many of these women are survivors of the 1984 gas disaster as well as living in communities whose wells have been poisoned by chemicals from the factory.

The stench of chemicals inside the factory is almost unbearable.

A woman is overcome by the chemical fumes. Eyes burning, she has to be led away.

Women moving past waste piled in the background.

Puddles of toxic tar lie on the ground, open to air and rain. Union Carbide, which left the factory in this filthy state, disclaims all responsibility. Read the pious environmental statements of its 100% owner Dow Chemicals here, here and here. This is what it has to say about Bhopal.

Rao of Ramki tries to explain to the angry crowd what his company is doing. Note the rifle-armed policeman in the background.

Rao arguing with survivors' leader Rasheeda Bi, winner of the 2004 Goldman Award for outstanding services to the environment. Cuts no ice in her home town where the politicians simply do not care about the survivors.

Local people listening to Rao.

Rao bows to the demand of the protesters and writes down an account of the chemicals in the factory.

His note (below) makes it clear that unless properly handled, the chemicals pose a real danger to local people.

Even as these events are unfolding, work restarts.

Second poison cloud
engulfs Bhopal

SECOND STAGE OF THE AUTHORITIES' "CLEAN-UP":
MACHINES CREATE CHEMICAL POISON CLOUDS

The contractor hired by the Madhya Pradesh Pollution Control Board brings in machines and starts shifting dangerous chemicals with no protective clothing for workers. The company involved is Ramky Pharma City [India] Ltd of Hyderabad.

Clouds of poisons rise up into the air and can be smelt at considerable distances away from the factory. Residents of nearby communities, whose water is poisoned by chemicals leaking from the factory, and many of whom are victims of the original 1984 disaster, start feeling sick.

The International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal has long demanded a clean-up, but to recognised international standards of safety, not some twopenny operation that endangers the lives of workers and local people. The picture above shows tar lying on the ground. For more about the chemicals at the factory go here.

Members of the ICJB who had been given assurances that they would be allowed to monitor the clean-up are denied entry, large numbers of armed police are brought by the authorities to make sure that the outside world does not find out what is happening inside.

We need your help and we need it now. Please phone the following officials who are responsible for this situation and demand that
1) the clean-up must be conducted to the highest international safety standards
2) that observers from the community and the Supreme Court Monitoring Committee on Bhopal should be allowed entry.

Please call them on their mobiles or at home, at all hours (Bhopal is 5 1/2 hours ahead of GMT:

Dr P S Dubey Chairman, M P Pollution Control Board:
+91-755-2423653 [home] +91 94251 95541 [mobile]

Dr B S Ohri, Director, Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief & Rehabilitation, Government of Madhya Pradesh:
+91-755-2763585 [home] +91 94250 04414 [mobile]
[In charge of the work inside the Carbide factory]

Workers' lives endangered
by cynical politicians

THE FIRST STAGE OF THE AUTHORITIES' "CLEAN-UP":
UNPROTECTED WOMEN AND BAREFOOT CHILDREN

As Union Carbide refuses to decontaminate its abandoned factory in Bhopal which is poisoning the water of 20,000 people, the local government, goaded by court action, is pretending to begin a "clean-up, putting unprotected and unsuspected workers at risk". Women with barefoot children, and men wearing no safety gear whatsoever, have been sent in to manually shift poisons which will very likely kill them. If these people die, or become ill, the responsibility will rest with the politicians and bureaucrats who sent them in, and with the corporation that wishes the world to believe that the mess it created is none of its business.

"The state of the Union Carbide plant is a disgrace," reported the UK's Guardian newspaper in 2002. "When the company finally left the city in 1999, it left behind around 5,000 tonnes of process and waste chemicals - toxins that have leached into the soil and water in and around the factory." Nothing has changed. The pictures above were taken in June 2005.

Also 1999 Greenpeace scientists published a detailed report on the toxic chemicals they had found in the well water of local people, poisons which were capable of causing cancers and birth defects and could only have come from the Carbide factory. The corporation denied that the chemicals came come from its factory, a lie all the more monstrous because Union Carbide has known since 1989, a full decade before the Greenpeace report, that soil and water in its plant were deadly.

The secret Carbide document that proves they knew.

Read more about Carbide's private documents here.

To this day Union Carbide and its new 100% owner Dow Chemical disclaim all responsibility for their Bhopal factory, saying it is now a matter for the local government. The MP Government and the Central Government reply that Carbide is responsible and must pay for a clean-up. The handover of the factory to the local authorities was based on an environmental report by the Indian NEERI institute, which Carbide knew to be seriously flawed, and which grossly played down the danger to local water supplies.

Read more on the NEERI report and how Carbide's private advisors Arthur D Little, rubbished it.

In New York, Union Carbide faces a class action suit which may soon go before a jury. It is possible that at last Union Carbide may be held accountable for the condition of the factory and that it might be ordered at its own expense to clean, decontaminate and remediate the factory and affected soil and groundwater. Such a clean-up would be expensive. Greenpeace has estimated the work and costs involved.

Even as the New York case continues, other plaintiffs in India, impatient with Union Carbide's inactivity and lack of responsibility have successfully moved in the MP High Court that in the interests of public health, the local government should be asked imediately to start containing the toxic material, irrespective of liability. It simply has to be done because people are sick and the MP government are the only people who can do it.

This is a huge headache for the local government who don't have a good record on issues related to Union Carbide and the survivors.

-----Local government officials bungled the handover of the site from Carbide/Eveready, at a time when the MPPCB (Madhya Pradesh Pollution Control Board) was so corrupt that it had to be dissolved.

-----The administration of present Chief Minister Babu Lal Gaur is willing to sell the gas victims short in order to get votes, is for example trying to get the whole city declared gas-affected so that the compensation intended for the victims must be distributed even to those who were not affected, voter bribery on a vast scale.

-----The Gaur administration has for the last year ignored the order of the Supreme Court to provide clean water to 16 affected communities totalling 20,000 people whose wells are poisoned by chemicals from the UCIL plant. Despite Bhopal receiving or being about to receive large amounts of Kolar water virtually nothing has been done for the communities whose wells are poisoned.

Sanno was struck in the eye, her two small children were crushed in the panic when police began beating women

----Women and children from communities whose water has been poisoned were beaten and kicked by the police when they went to a government office to complain that despite the Supreme Court's order, virtually nothing has been done. (Read about the Neend Udao campaign.)

The Gaur administration has now supposedly undertaken the initial clean up of the factory through the MPPCB. The survivors and their supporters in the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal do not object to a proper containment of the toxic material, in fact we have been asking for it for years and survivors and their supporters were beaten up by police when they tried out of desperation to do it themselves. The difference is that the ICJB went with into the factory with highly trained teams using protective gear and had a proper thought-through containment strategy. ICJB secret video of volunteer being beaten by police.

The local government's so called "clean up" is nothing of the kind, it is a meaningless cosmetic gesture and will be conducted to no recognised standard. The workers have no protective clothing, not even masks to protect their eyes, noses and mouths from chemical dust.

We know of young men who were employed by Union Carbide / Eveready to do similar clean up work at the factory, also without protection. Many have died of cancers. Therefore we oppose this meaningless and dangerous exploitation of these workers, some of whom have already reported difficulty breathing.

The ICJB demands that the clean up of the factory be carried out to the highest international standards and that the contaminated soil and polluted drinking supplies be remediated. There is no one in India with the expertise to do this.

The ICJB reminds the government of India, and local politicians that they have already indicated that they hold UCC responsible for paying for the clean up as expressed in the "no objection" letter to the NY court. We therefore call on the authorities immediately to do the following:

a) halt the initial surface containment work until properly equipped and trained teams are found to do it

b) reiterate strong support for the plaintiffs in the NY class action where the strong possibility exists of UCC/Dow being ordered to carry out work to high standards at their own cost

c) If interim remedial work is deemed immediately necessary in the public health interest then the authorities must
i) publish for consultation its clean-up plans and protocols and demonstrate a clear mechanism to recover costs from UC
ii) call in top independent experts to determine to the highest international standards the nature and scope of necessary remedial work, in full consultation of survivors organisations
iii) allow independent experts, community representatives and NGOs to monitor any actual containment work done to ensure complete transparency and accountability, best safety standards for the workers and the communities living around the factory site.

Please check OPINION, ACTIONS and PRESS RELEASES blogs for latest updates

For more information on the day to day situation in Bhopal please write to icjb@bhopal.net.

Rachna Dhingra, International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal +91 9826167369

Rashida Bee, Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmchari Sangh: +91 9303132298

Syed. M. Irfan, Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangarsh Morcha: +91 9329026319

Shahid Noor, Bhopal Ki Aawaaz: +91 9303122784

Vinuta Gopal, Greenpeace India: vgopal@dialb.greenpeace.org +91 9845535418