A critical congressional resolution marking the 40th anniversary of the deadliest chemical disaster, the explosion of a Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal, India was introduced in both the US House and Senate. The resolution proposes proclaiming December 3 as National Chemical Disaster Awareness Day, in honor of victims and survivors of chemical disasters both in Bhopal and in the U.S. This resolution recommends common-sense measures to protect communities’ health, prevent future chemical disasters, and hold companies accountable for the harmful effects of disasters they’ve caused.It has been 40 years since December 3, 1984, when a Union Carbide pesticide factory leaked 27 tons of poisonous methyl isocyanate gas in Bhopal, India, blanketing the city with a toxic cloud, poisoning a half million people and killing 10,000 innocent people in just three days. Four decades later, tens of thousands of Indians have died due to toxics exposure and even more suffer long-term health damage. Decades later, the fight for corporate accountability from Union Carbide, Dow Chemical, and other giant corporations who put profits over communities continues.
In the decades since, more chemical disasters have upended families’ lives and devastated communities. Here in the U.S., just since January 2021, there have been hundreds of incidents of toxic chemical releases, fires, or explosions to date. From the toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio to the chemical fire at a BioLab facility in Conyers, Georgia, time and again, corporations are continuing to put ordinary communities at grave risk for the sake of their bottom line.
Designating December 3 as National Chemical Disaster Awareness Day won’t just serve to commemorate and honor victims and survivors of chemical disasters – it will further fuel the effort to prevent future disasters from devastating other families in India, the United States, and around the world.
The congressional resolution is endorsed by 74 organizations, including Pesticide Action and Agroecology Network (PAN). Representatives Pramila Jayapal and Rashida Tlaib and Senator Jeff Merkley led the introduction of this resolution which was co-sponsored in the U.S. House by Representatives Eleanor Holmes Norton, Barbara Lee, Jim McGovern, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Jamie Raskin and in the U.S. Senate by Senators Ron Wyden and Peter Welch.
The horrific Bhopal chemical disaster became a galvanizing incident that exposed to the world the full extent of the short-term and long-term health threats posed by chemical disasters. Unfortunately, in the decades since that disaster and the 1985 chemical spill at another Union Carbide facility in West Virginia that followed soon after, hundreds of communities in India, the United States, and elsewhere have felt the horrific impacts of toxic chemical exposure.
Bhopali residents and the international community have continued to wage a David vs. Goliath battle to demand accountability – first from Union Carbide, then from Dow Chemical when it acquired the company in 2001 – and their struggle has helped to ignite a major global advocacy movement to safeguard communities’ environmental health and demand justice for communities devastated by chemical disasters.
“To keep corporate control of its Indian subsidiary, Union Carbide recklessly compromised on safety procedures at its Bhopal plant, setting the stage for history’s worst industrial disaster,” said Rachna Dhingra, International Coordinator, International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal (ICJB). “Bhopal’s survivors, who continue to live with sickness, intergenerational harms, poisoned water, and gross injustice, hold as their dearest hope that no other community anywhere in the world should suffer as they have, or as they still do. By designating December 3 as National Chemical Disaster Awareness Day, the U.S. Congress sends a powerful message to Union Carbide, Dow, and to other chemical manufacturers inclined to cut corners and to socialise costs: ‘We will remember, and you will be held accountable.’”
“40 years after the Bhopal chemical disaster, we’re still fighting to hold corporations accountable for harmful toxic exposure in nearby communities, from Bhopal to East Palestine, Ohio to Conyers, Georgia. We need strong safeguards to prevent future tragedies, so that our communities and public health do not continue to be sacrificed by the horrific fallout of chemical disasters,” said Basav Sen, Director of the Climate Policy Program at the Institute for Policy Studies. “Designating December 3 as National Chemical Disaster Awareness Day will send a strong signal to chemical manufacturers: it’s time to put our communities’ well-being ahead of corporate profits.”
“The 1984 Bhopal disaster at a pesticide manufacturing plant was the worst industrial disaster in history, and the unfathomable loss of life and generations of health impacts ignited a global movement that continues today,” said Allison Davis, Executive Director, Pesticide Action Network (PAN) North America. “We must finally hold accountable the corporations that made such an unconscionable disaster possible, and create strong safeguards for communities hosting industrial chemical plants. Pesticides continue to be manufactured around the world in unsafe conditions, from LaPorte, Texas to Cancer Alley in Louisiana to Johannesburg, South Africa. We applaud the effort for a National Chemical Disaster Awareness Day and the attention this will bring to the harms so many communities face.”
“The Bhopal gas leak is the iconic example of the petrochemical industry’s culture of treating people and the environment as expendable. At the same time it is also a powerful testimony to people’s tenacious struggle for health and justice.” said Gary Cohen, President, Health Care Without Harm (HCWH).
“The Bhopal gas tragedy, a devastating industrial disaster, highlighted the intersection of environmental racism and corporate irresponsibility. The hazardous chemicals from the pesticide plant continue to contaminate and poison the community today, forty years after the initial leak. Amnesty supports designating the anniversary of the disaster, December 3, as National Chemical Disaster Awareness Day and ask that the survivors finally receive justice,” said Amnesty International USA.
“Public Rail Now is proud to express our solidarity with the people of Bhopal, who continue to suffer the impacts of the catastrophic injustice perpetrated by Union Carbide forty years ago. The Bhopal chemical disaster, like all disasters caused by corporate negligence and greed, was a crime against humanity, and it is time for those responsible to be held to account,” said Adam Barrington, National Organizer, Public Rail Now.
“Railroad Workers United stands in solidarity with all victims of disasters, especially those resulting from negligence or intentional cost-cutting by corporations and the political parties and politicians who enable them,” said Nick Wurst, General Secretary, Railroad Workers United. “The fight for workplace safety, community safety, and justice for working-class people affected by disaster is the same, whether in Bhopal, East Palestine, Lac-Megantic or anywhere else in the world. Ultimately the best hope for building safe economies free of harmful corporate interest is working-class action. We have the power!”
Photo courtesy ICJB
