By Rama Lakshmi
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, March 29, 2008

NEW DELHI, March 28 -- Twenty-three years after a Union Carbide chemical plant in India spewed poisonous gas in what remains the world's worst industrial disaster, survivors are demanding a cleanup of toxic chemicals at the abandoned factory site that have contaminated their groundwater.

On Friday, about 70 protesters arrived in New Delhi after marching 500 miles from Bhopal, the city whose name has become synonymous with the catastrophe. Organizers of the march said about 50 more people will arrive by train every day until their demands are met.

The marchers say Michigan-based Dow Chemical Co., which acquired Union Carbide Corp. in 2001, is responsible for cleaning up the site and paying the medical bills incurred after their exposure to the toxic water. They have also asked Dow to produce representatives of Union Carbide who have been charged with culpable homicide in the disaster.

"After 23 years, the neighborhood around the factory still shows a high rate of birth defects, cancer and other disabilities," said Nafisa Khan, 40, who marched from her home near the factory site to New Delhi. "The toxic chemicals buried in and around the factory have entered groundwater, and we use the contaminated water for drinking, cooking and bathing. First we were hit by the poisonous gas and then by this bad water that gives us skin diseases, chest pain and loss of appetite."

Khan was among hundreds of thousands of people who ran from the plumes of 40 tons of deadly methyl isocyanate gas that escaped from the Union Carbide pesticide plant shortly after midnight on Dec. 3, 1984. The leak killed at least 3,000 people in the first few days and led to 14,000 deaths overall from illness, according to the government. Survivors contend the toll is 23,000.

More than 100,000 people still suffer from chronic illnesses tied to the incident, including tuberculosis, depression, poor eyesight and gynecological problems. Khan, who was two months pregnant at the time of the disaster, had a miscarriage; three others in her family died.

Union Carbide settled out of court in 1989 and paid the Indian government $470 million. But survivors have been fighting a seemingly endless battle to get help for the 30,000 people who continue to live in shantytowns around the factory.

The cleanup of the site, which contains about 8,000 tons of carcinogenic chemicals, has been blocked by court battles, official indifference and debates over corporate responsibility. Because the factory land now belongs to the Madhya Pradesh government, Dow says the state is responsible for cleaning it up. But the Indian government's Chemicals and Fertilizers Ministry has said in court that Dow should pay 1 billion rupees, about $25 million at current exchange rates, to clean up the site.

"It is Dow's duty to clean up. Why should anybody else pay for it?" Khan said. "Until this is done, we will not allow Dow to rest easy and do business in India. We may be poor, but they have to value our lives."

Although the Chemicals and Fertilizers Ministry has supported the case against Dow, other parts of the Indian government have been more reluctant. Survivors from Bhopal will meet an official from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's office Saturday to renew their long-standing demand for a national commission to provide social and economic rehabilitation and safe drinking water and to pressure Dow to clean up the site and produce Union Carbide representatives in Indian court. Survivors say they believe the government fears that pressuring the company would jeopardize future investment.

In an e-mail response to questions, a Dow official in Midland, Mich., said the firm did not inherit Union Carbide's liabilities when it acquired the company.

"Anyone who knows of this issue has deep sympathy for the victims of the tragedy in Bhopal. Today, we all ask the same question, 'Why isn't this site cleaned up?' " said Scot Wheeler, a Dow spokesman. He said Dow had "never owned or operated the former Bhopal plant site and this situation is not Dow's responsibility, accountability, or liability to bear," adding that Union Carbide is a separate subsidiary company.

A senior Indian government official familiar with the matter, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, said: "We have not taken any position on the issues before the court. Dow is aware that they have to defend themselves in court as best they can."

The wall of the Bhopal factory is covered with survivors' graffiti such as "Dow Chemicals Must End Toxic Terror in Bhopal" and "23 Years Is Enough, Bhopal Justice Now." Residents say that much of the site is unguarded and that children and animals often wander in. People also sneak in to steal scrap metal and copper coils for resale.

"The factory was a source of jobs for all of us, but it turned into a messenger of death," said Rashida Bee, 52, who lost six members of her family that night. "The compensation was pittance. When the money was finally distributed among 570,927 survivors in 2005, most of the people got the equivalent of $1,280 each."

In 2001, when Dow purchased Union Carbide, Bee led the residents to Mumbai, where the group covered the walls of the Dow office with red paint, calling it "the blood of Bhopal."

Dow has operated in India for more than 50 years and manufactures pesticides, polymers and industrial adhesives. In the past six months, students at India's premier engineering school, the Indian Institutes of Technology, have resisted Dow's efforts to conduct job interviews on campuses and called for action on the Bhopal site.

An activist at the march Friday said that Dow has civil and criminal liability in India.

"We are not saying Dow is responsible for the gas tragedy in 1984," said Nityanand Jayaraman, a volunteer for the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal. "But Union Carbide is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dow, so it has a criminal liability to produce Union Carbide representatives in Indian court. By not doing so, it is sheltering a fugitive. The responsibility to clean up the deadly factory site is Dow's civil liability."

Then he added, "Instead of a cleanup, all we get is coverup."