Word: bhopal
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Some foreign violence does get substantial U.S. media coverage. But typically this is because American corporate or other interests are directly involved -- as when Union Carbide's poison gas cloud killed 2,233 people in Bhopal, India, in 1984 -- or because humanitarian groups arouse American donors and volunteers, as happened with famines in Ethiopia and Biafra. In general, however, the scales are so tilted that Hurricane Hugo, which killed 51 people, got about as much coverage across the U.S. as the 1985 Mexico City earthquake that claimed 20,000 lives...
...same time, momentous accidents have reminded citizens that commonplace industrial activities have vast destructive power when companies are careless. The deadly chemical accident in Bhopal, India, groundwater contamination at Colorado's Rocky Flats nuclear-weapons plant and the oil slick from the Exxon Valdez all suggest that safety is too low a corporate priority. "That's why there was such a sense of outrage over the Valdez," Johnson argues. "The consequences of mistakes are just so much greater today...
...industrial accident in history compares with the devastation caused on a December night in 1984, when 45 tons of poison gas leaked from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India. The deadly methyl isocyanate, a pesticide ingredient, killed more than 3,400 people and injured 200,000. The Indian government charged the company with negligence, brought murder charges against its chief executive, Warren Anderson, and demanded $3.3 billion to settle claims by victims and their families...
...demonstration in Bhopal, some 200 women carried placards reading THE GOVERNMENT HAS BETRAYED US. Others called for the hanging of those responsible for the Bhopal leak. The main opposition party in the Indian legislature branded the settlement "a total sellout by the government...
...leak was an act of sabotage by a disgruntled worker, will have no trouble raising the cash. The company had already set aside $200 million for the purpose, and its insurance will cover another $250 million. But the case may not be fully closed, liability experts say, because dissatisfied Bhopal survivors may decide to file claims in the U.S. as well...