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Dow gets what it deserves

Rasheeda Bee, Bhopal survivor Enlarge Image

The testament of a Bhopal survivor

That night I was sleeping, we had no notion that any thing like this would happen. It was around the middle of the night. I woke up to the pungent smell of irritation of something like burning chilis. Everyone was coughing in the house, everyone had got up. We started asking each other, 'Who has burned chili’s in the house?'

Survivors display a poster calling for the extradition of Warren Anderson, former Chief Executive of Union Carbide, from the US. Enlarge Image

Small step towards justice for Bhopal

Against many people's expectations a judge in Bhopal has rejected a request to lower the charges against corporate criminal Warren Anderson, former CEO of Union Carbide. Anderson is wanted in India to answer how the actions of Union Carbide contributed to the world's worst industrial disaster on the night of December 2/3rd 1984 when a toxic gas leak killed an estimated 20,000 people and left 120,000 people chronically ill.

Warren Anderson, former CEO of Union Carbide in India, at his door in Bridgehampton, Long Island, New York. Enlarge Image

Carbide Criminal found

Warren Anderson, former Union Carbide CEO at the time of the world's worst industrial disaster in Bhopal, India in 1984, has been found living a life of luxury in New York State. He is wanted in India to face charges of culpable homicide over the deaths of 20,000 people since the disaster.

Lone survivor. This elderly woman was badly injured when exposed to the poisonous gas, but survived. Everyone else in her family died. Suffering from her injuries, she has an uncertain future. Enlarge Image

Dow shuns responsiblity for disaster

Dow Chemical is shunning their responsibility for cleaning up the worst industrial disaster in history. When they bought out Union Carbide, they only saw the assets it would bring, they turned a blind eye to the to the 8000 that died in the immediate aftermath of the explosion in Bhopal. They ignored the 20,000 people who have died from exposure-related illnesses since. They continue to ignore an estimated 120,000 who remain chronically ill. Their attention is focused firmly on the bottom line which just reported third quarter sales of US$ 7 billion.

Posting warning signs on the site of a toxic waste dump Enlarge Image

Playing with their future

Small children flying kites in the clear blue sky. Teenagers enjoying a game of cricket outside their homes while nearby water buffalo cool off in the local pond. Nothing from this scene portrays to me the dark fact that the land surrounding these local homes is polluted with deadly toxic chemicals. However this is one of many communities that live next door to the abandoned Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India and with the poisons left behind by the multinational chemical giant.

Greenpeace activists and locals are arrested before starting to clean up contamination site in Bhopal. Enlarge Image

Bhopal cleanup team arrested

Within a half hour of arriving on site to clean up Bhopal, around 60 protesters including local residents and Greenpeace activists were arrested. It was estimated that more than 100 police in riot gear swarmed over the peaceful action, which was taking place at the former Union Carbide factory, now owned by Dow, where a deadly gas leak in 1984 killed thousands and blinded and maimed thousands more. Former Union Carbide CEO Warren Anderson has been wanted for culpable homicide for more than a decade for his role in the accident.

Bhopal activist Nity Jayaraman arrested in Bhopal. Enlarge Image

Charges dropped and apologies offered

Specialists and trained activists from the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal were brutally assaulted by the police last week when they entered the derelict Union Carbide factory site trying to contain a fraction of the tonnes of hazardous waste lying abandoned at the factory site. But now charges will be dropped and the brutal treatment acknowledged.

Greenpeace activists and Bhopal residents today placed a monument at the Dow headoffice in Terneuzen, Netherlands. Enlarge Image

Investment firms tell Dow to invest in Bhopal clean up

A group of socially responsible investment firms, with combined assets valued at $13 billion, are urging Dow Chemical Company to address the ongoing economic, health and environmental liabilities stemming from a poisonous gas leak in Bhopal, India in 1984, which has killed and injured tens of thousands of people.

Victims of the Bhopal disaster protest outside Dow's headquarters in Bombay. Enlarge Image

How low can Dow go?

In a stunning example of corporate insensibility, Dow Chemical, the world´s largest chemical company, and new owner of Union Carbide, is to sue survivors of the 1984 Union Carbide gas disaster in Bhopal, India. While the site of the disaster lies covered in toxic waste and survivors struggle with continuing ill health and deadly pollution from the site, Dow has decided to add to their woes with an Indian lawsuit.

Greenpeace activists on their way to Dow headquarters in the Netherlands to deliver a deadly cargo of waste from the Bhopal site in India, in big yellow barrels. From left to right: Rashida Bi, Bhopal survivor, Monique Harthoorn, Dutch campaigner, and Ganesh Nochur, Indian campaigner. Enlarge Image

Dow refuses to take back its waste

Activists from the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal wanted to give something back to Dow today: a few barrels of the waste the chemical giant refuses to clean up. Dow's response: arrests of over twenty activists.

Skulls of the victims of the disaster used to investigate the effects of the gas leak on the brain Enlarge Image

Take the message direct to Dow Chemical

Despite having received over 15,000 emails and many thousands of postcards and letters urging them to clean up their mess in Bhopal, India, Dow Chemical is continuing to ignore growing public outcry. We want that to change today and that is why we are asking you to join our international call-in to Dow.

Victims of the Bhopal disaster protest outside Dow's headquarters in Bombay. Enlarge Image

Bhopal protests move online

Dow Chemical is going to court soon in India. Not as the defendants for their ongoing responsibility for the Bhopal disaster, but as the plaintiffs. They're suing (we're not making this up) the SURVIVORS of the disaster for protesting at a Dow plant.

Bhopal survivors and activists start their hunger strike on Wall Street. Enlarge Image

Hungry for justice

Eight days into an indefinite hunger strike, two survivors of the world's worst chemical disaster in Bhopal, India brought the disaster home to top executives of Dow Chemical. The survivors addressed shareholders and leadership at Dow's Annual General Meeting at its headquarters in the US , demanding that the company take responsibility for the health consequences and environmental impacts of its operations in Bhopal and other communities around the world that have been poisoned by Dow.

On the 19th anniversary of the world's worst industrial disaster, the Bhopal gas tragedy of 1984, activists from Greenpeace held a protest activity at the headquarter of Dow Chemical Europe as part of the Global Day of Action against Corporate Crime. Enlarge Image

Message in a bottle for Dow

It's 19 years since the world's worst industrial disaster in Bhopal, India. Deadly gas leaked from the poorly maintained and understaffed plant owned by Union Carbide, killing up to 20,000 people and leaving 120,000 chronically ill. For 19 years the companies responsible have done almost nothing to help. Now you can do a little something to help the survivors of the ongoing disaster and send a message to Union Carbide's new owner Dow Chemical that it should be cleaning up its toxic mess.

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Latest Update

Latest Update: The Dow director of Finance at the Mumbai headquaters met a delegation from the protest and accepted the polluted soil, water and brooms. He stated that he would personally recommend to 'higher authorities' at Dow that remediation measures be undertaken to alleviate the suffering of the Bhopali people. Will Dow's 'higher authorites' act on the recommendations of its own staff? Audio: Listen to a report from the action scene and an explantion of the survivors protest songs.