Word: bhopal
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Nearly three years after that deadly night when a toxic cloud leaked from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, causing history's biggest industrial accident, a new book alleges that the tragedy may have been even more gruesome than assumed. The Indian government has said 2,700 people died at Bhopal. But in A Killing Wind (McGraw-Hill; 297 pages; $19.95), Author Dan Kurzman asserts that the death toll was at least 8,000. He speculates that Indian officials understated the figures in part to "keep the political shock waves under control...
Basing his estimate on interviews and private records, Kurzman writes that in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, 3,000 victims were cremated in conformance with Hindu custom, and 3,000 were buried according to Muslim rites. He also cites accounts that an additional 2,000 victims fled Bhopal and died elsewhere. Similar and even wilder versions of the disaster's toll have previously circulated in India. But compensation claims for deaths caused by the accident remain well below 3,000. Indian officials last week disputed Kurzman's finding. Said one: "The figure we announced was based on solid investigations...
While in some instances the profit motive may be held in check by a strong sense of ethical responsibility, good business and good ethics rarely work in harmony; the conflict almost always remains. Did Union Carbide readily pay out millions to the families of the Bhopal disaster, despite its clear responsibility for what happened? Does the certain knowledge that cigarette smoking is unhealthy prevent tobacco companies from putting forth all sorts of spurious arguments to the contrary...
...cloud of deadly methyl isocyanate gas poured out of the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, killing more than 2,000 people. Since then, Carbide officials have offered allegations that the world's worst industrial accident may have been the result of a deliberate act. Last week the company went further, declaring that their pretrial investigation was focused on a disgruntled employee. According to an earlier report in the London Times, the employee, an Indian citizen, might have been trying to spoil a batch of the chemical after a row with his supervisor...
...charges were greeted with skepticism by attorneys representing the Bhopal victims, whose claims of more than $350 million for damages are to be filed in an Indian court later this month. Said Stanley Chesley, one of three court-appointed lawyers representing the plaintiffs in the U.S.: "The company is trying to soften hostility in India by pointing the finger at someone else...