DOW MUST ACT ON BHOPAL - HALL

12.00.00am GMT Wed 2nd Dec 2009

A North East MEP is urging action to help half a million people in Bhopal, India, who are still suffering from contamination 25 years after a chemical disaster which devastated the city.

Union Carbide, the company which owned the Bhopal pesticide plant at the time of the explosion in December 1984, is now owned by chemicals company Dow, which recently hit the headlines because of plans to close its operations on Teesside next month, with the loss of more than 200 jobs. Dow is refusing to take any responsibility for the decontamination of the Bhopal site.

Liberal Democrat MEP Fiona Hall has signed a Written Declaration in the European Parliament, condemning the inadequate compensation package for victims of the Bhopal disaster and the lack of progress on clean-up.

Fiona said:

"The failure to decontaminate the Bhopal site and the inadequate 1989 compensation package mean that the terrible impact of the disaster continues to echo down the generations, with children today still being born with birth defects.

"Dow Chemicals should take responsibility for the clean-up of the site. The EU should offer all possible support to the Indian government and the Madhya Pradesh state government to make this happen.

On the twenty fifth anniversary of Bhopal, it is vital that this terrible incident is not forgotten ."

ENDS.

NOTES TO EDITORS

Thursday 3 December 2009 marks the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster.

The disaster took place at a Union Carbide pesticide plant in the Indian city of Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. At midnight on 3 December 1984, the plant accidentally released methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas, exposing more than 500,000 people to MIC and other chemicals.

The first official immediate death toll was 2,259. The government of Madhya Pradesh has confirmed a total of 3,787 deaths related to the gas release. Others estimate 8,000-10,000 died within 72 hours and 25,000 have since died from gas-related diseases.

Some 25 years after the gas leak, 390 tonnes of toxic chemicals abandoned at the Union Carbide plant continue to pollute the ground water in the region and affects thousands residents of Bhopal who depend on it.

There are currently civil and criminal cases related to the disaster ongoing in the United States District Court, Manhattan and the District Court of Bhopal, India against Union Carbide, now owned by Dow Chemical Company, with arrest warrants pending against Warren Anderson, CEO of Union Carbide at the time of the disaster.