(This video depicts the march taken out on December 3, 2021, by
activists and survivors of the 1984 Bhopal Gas Leak tragedy. Scores of
people participated in the march)
On the intervening night of December 2-3, 1984, a poison spread in the air in Bhopal, the capital of the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. On that dark night, the deadly methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas leaked from the Union Carbide plant located on the city outskirts and caused the deaths of thousands of people, most of them from the lower middle class and poor background. Estimates on the death toll vary. The official immediate death toll was 2,259.
Activists and survivors say the figure is close to 25,000 and counting. In 2008, the Government of Madhya Pradesh paid compensation to the family members of 3,787 victims killed in the gas release, and to 574,366 injured victims. A government affidavit in 2006 stated that the leak caused 558,125 injuries, including 38,478 temporary partial injuries and approximately 3,900 severely and permanently disabling injuries. Others estimate that 8,000 died within two weeks of the gas leak, and another 8,000 or more have since died from gas-related diseases.
The long-term effects of this industrial disaster are visible in large-scale groundwater contamination in the residential localities around the now-abandoned Union Carbide factory, massive birth defects being found in children born decades later (even to this day) and paltry compensation to victims (it's like adding insult to injury), making it an ongoing tragedy and a mockery of the basic principles of natural justice.
On December 3, 2021, survivors and activists took out a march to mark the 37th anniversary of the industrial disaster, which ranks among the worst in the world. Starting near the Bharat Talkies, the march ended at the Union Carbide factory. Among the participants were Rashida Bi of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmchari Sangh, Rachna Dhingra of the Bhopal Group for Information and Action, Satinath Sarangi, Managing Trustee of the Sambhavna Trust and several other prominent activists and stoic survivors.
