Indian court says arrest Union Carbide boss

This video is called The Bhopal Chemical Disaster: Twenty Years Without Justice.

From British daily The Morning Star:

Ex-Union Carbide boss wanted by Indian court

Monday 03 August 2009

An Indian court has issued a new arrest warrant for the man who ran Union Carbide at the time of the horrific 1984 factory gas leak in Bhopal.

On Friday, in response to a recent appeal by a victims’ group, Bhopal chief judicial magistrate Prakash Mohan Tiwari ordered the arrest of former chief executive Warren Anderson and called on India’s government to press Washington for his extradition.

Victims and civil rights activists who gathered outside the court cheered at the news of the order.

They threw slippers at an effigy of Mr Anderson and hit it with brooms as they danced in the streets.

Mr Anderson had been arrested in India just after the disaster, but fled the country and now resides in the swanky Hamptons neighbourhood in New York.

He was CEO of Union Carbide, now owned by Dow Chemical Co, when 42 tons of toxic methyl isocyanate gas leaked from the factory on December 3 1984, killing at least 10,000 within 72 hours.

More than 555,000 people who survived the initial disaster are thought to have suffered after-effects, though the exact number of victims has never been determined.

Many have died over the years from gas-related illnesses like lung cancer, kidney failure and liver disease.

In 1989, Union Carbide paid $470 million (£278 million) in compensation to the Indian government and said that company officials were responsible for the cleanup.

Victims accuse New Delhi of delaying distribution of the funds.

A twenty-fifth anniversary remembrance ceremony was held on Sunday for the victims of the world’s worst industrial disaster outside the new offices of the company responsible: here.

Events will take place this week to mark the anniversary of the 1984 Bhopal disaster when a chemical plant leak killed tens of thousands in the Indian region: here.

Babu Lal Gaur is a much-reviled man in the slums that surround the derelict Union Carbide factory in Bhopal. As the Minister of Gas Relief and Rehabilitation in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, he is responsible for the welfare of the more than half a million survivors of the 1984 Bhopal Gas tragedy: here.

Twenty-five years after the worst industrial accident in history, hundreds of thousands of long-suffering victims in Bhopal continue to be treated with neglect and even contempt by every faction of the Indian establishment: here.

India: The Chhattisgarh government has been forced to call a judicial probe into a horrific industrial accident that killed 45 workers at a Bharat Aluminum Co. (BALCO) construction site in Korba last month: here.

Eight former senior managers of Union Carbide’s Indian subsidiary have been convicted of death by negligence for their roles in the Bhopal gas tragedy: here.

Bhopal disaster culprits given slap on wrist: here.

Indian investigators have filed a new court request seeking the extradition of the former chief of a US chemical company in connection with the 1984 Bhopal gas leak disaster: here.

After Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal, India, Are chemical plants any safer today? Here.