Bhopal, December 02: A girl stands near water towers outside her home near the site of the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal, India.
Groundwater found near the site of the world’s worst chemical industrial accident in Bhopal in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh is still toxic and poisoning residents.
A chemical leak at the US-owned plant poisoned an estimated half million residents of the city of Bhopal on Dec. 3, 1984.
The UK-based Bhopal Medical Appeal (BMA) report says the scene of the 1984 disaster still has alarming levels of poisons, with one 2,400 times the World Heath Organization (WHO) guideline,The Guardian reported on Tuesday.
“A huge proportion of the factory site is full of very toxic waste,” said Colin Toogood, the report’s author. “There are parts of the factory where the soil you walk on is 100 percent toxic waste, and there are areas where you still see pools of mercury on the ground.”
More than 500,000 people were exposed to the gas after 40 tons of deadly gas leaked at the plant of the Indian subsidiary of the US corporation Union Carbide.
Around 5,000 people died in the immediate aftermath, and 15,000 more died in the following weeks.
Many have suffered life-long chronic illness as a result and many children have been born with birth defects 25 years after the world’s worst industrial disaster.
–Agencies–