UNION CARBIDE'S BHOPAL CATASTROPHE

Union Carbide's Bhopal Catastrophe

Union Carbide's Bhopal Catastrophe

Introduction

The Bhopal disaster in India was the largest industrial disaster experience to date after the Chernobyl April 26, 1986. On this night the 2-3 December 1984, a cloud of highly toxic gas escaped from a subsidiary of U.S. company Union Carbide, causing nearly 10,000 deaths and more intoxicating than 300 000 people. 26 years later, the wound is not closed, people still dying each month of squealed, and compensation are slow to come up with a scandalous and obscene impunity. Story of a disaster was created by lack of vigilance by the U.S. chemical industry and laissez-faire environment (Anderson, 1984,, 1481).

Question # 1: Is Anderson to blame at all for this accident?

On 3 December 1984 in Bhopal, India. A toxic cloud escaped from the pesticide plant of Union Carbide and American society is between 16 and 30 000 dead and 500,000 wounded. The morning after that terrible night Pablo Bartholomew leaned over the shoulder of a man burying his daughter. While the father had buried the head of her child under the earth, suddenly overwhelmed by the thought of never again see the features of his daughter, he brushed the dust with his hand over the face of his child for him to take a last look (Anderson, 1984,, 1481).

This tender gesture captured by the photographer himself flooded with tears at the funeral of painful child has become the icon of the Bhopal disaster. The survivors of this disaster are still living chemical in deplorable conditions and fight for the company to recognize its wrongs. To date, officials continue to deny responsibility and have still not been tried. It is the largest industrial disaster known to date and that caused more than ten thousand deaths (Baxter, 1986,, 1).

Today, more than 20 years after the tragedy, toxic chemicals in the open or buried in the time of the use of this plant are still killing dozens of people every month. No effort is made by this company or the Indian state to clean the plant (Baxter, 1986,, 1).

Warren M. Anderson, 63 years chairman of Union Carbide Corporation, made a disappointing announcement that made them angry stockholder at the annual meeting in Danbury, Connecticut. Anderson, who immediately imprisoned by the government of India in the cost of "negligence and criminal corporate debt", which devotes all its attention to the problem of corporate fraud. Announcement to be considered in the form of details that complete the negotiations with officials from the government of India: they reject as insufficient estimated $ 200 million of compensation for the deaths of 2,000 people and another 200,000 were injured, which is due in December 1984 gas poisoning metal isocyanate from a Union Carbide pesticide plant located in Bhopal, India.

The case of Warren Anderson, former chief of Union Carbide, whose extradition from the U.S. is necessary in connection with the Bhopal gas tragedy, should be understood correctly. There is little doubt that Anderson can be extradited ...