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Shortly
after midnight poison gas leaked from a factory in Bhopal, India,
owned by the Union Carbide Corporation. There was no warning, none
of the plant's safety systems were working. In the city people were
sleeping. They woke in darkness to the sound of screams with the
gases burning their eyes, noses and mouths. They began retching
and coughing up froth streaked with blood. Whole neighbourhoods
fled in panic, some were trampled, others convulsed and fell dead.
People lost control of their bowels and bladders as they ran. Within
hours thousands of dead bodies lay in the streets. Read
a survivor's account of "that night". More background
here.
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PICTURES OF THE 'CLEAN UP'
FOR HIGHER RESOLUTION VERSIONS, PLEASE EMAIL EDITOR@BHOPAL.NET OR ICJB@BHOPAL.NET
MORE FACTORY PICTURES HERE
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
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| For
the last 20 years, some of the poorest people on earth, sick,
living on the edge of starvation, illiterate, without funds,
powerful |
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friends
or political influence, have found themselves fighting one
of the world's biggest and richest corporations, backed by
the government, military, and, it often seems, the judiciary
of the world's most powerful nation.
The corporation and its allies
have it all – wealth, power, political influence, lawyers,
PR companies, the ear of presidents and prime ministers, the
power to dictate policy or bend it to their will, and to manipulate
the courts and laws of two countries to avoid justice in either.
The nothing people have literally
nothing. If 35,000 of them clubbed together they could not
afford one American attorney. Their campaign for justice has
been conducted on the most unequal terms. On one side, multi-million
dollar budgets, armies of corporate lawyers, political lobbyists,
spindoctors and media manipulators (including Burson Marstellar
the world's biggest PR company), on the other a handful of
volunteers often without money for stamps, photocopying, telephone
bills, or travel.
It's David against an
army of Goliaths.
more
. . .
Article
courtesy of "777, the newsletter of the Bhopal Medical
Appeal"
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