BHOPAL, India (AlertNet) - It was seen as a symbol of the new emerging India -- a factory that would not only generate thousands of jobs, but manufacture cheap pesticides for millions of farmers.
But the Union Carbide plant in the central city of Bhopal left a more potent legacy when it accidently released toxic gases into the air, killing thousands of people and causing many more to suffer in one of the world's worst industrial disasters.
A quarter of a century on, the derelict factory stands abandoned, but behind its locked iron gates lies what environmentalists say is "a disaster within a disaster" -- a highly polluted site which, according to a new study, is slowly poisoning the drinking water for thousands of Indians.
"Our findings suggest that the entire site is highly contaminated," said Sunita Narain, director of the Delhi-based think-tank, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), which in October tested the toxicity levels of ground water and soil samples in and outside the plant.
"The factory site in Bhopal is leading to chronic toxicity, which is a continuous tiny exposure leading to poisoning of our bodies."
In the early hours of December 3, 1984, around 40 metric tonnes of toxic methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas leaked into the atmosphere and carried by the wind to the surrounding slums.
The government says around 3,500 died as a result of the disaster. Activists using mortality rates for survivors issued by the government's Indian Council for Medical Research calculate that 25,000 people died in the immediate aftermath and the years that followed.
Activists and health workers say a further 100,000 people who were exposed to the gas continue to suffer today from sicknesses such as cancer, blindness, respiratory difficulties, immune and neurological disorders, female reproductive disorders as well as birth defects among children born to affected women.
U.S. company Dow Chemical, which now owns Union Carbide, has long denied liability, saying it bought the company a decade after Union Carbide settled its liabilities with the Indian government in 1989 by paying $470 million.
"Any efforts by activists and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to try to attach responsibility/liability for the site clean-up to Union Carbide and Dow are misdirected," Tomm F. Sprick, Director of Union Carbide Information Center, told AlertNet by email.
"Regarding any site contamination, while we are aware of conflicting claims being made by various groups and reported in the media, we have no first-hand knowledge of what chemicals, if any, may remain at the site and what impact, if any, they may be having on area groundwater."
Sprick added that the Indian government took control of the site in 1998 and assumed all accountability for the site.
"The groundwater issue at the Bhopal site is best addressed by the State Government of Madhya Pradesh, which owns the site and is responsible for clean-up activities," he said.
"BOTCHED" CLEAN-UP
But activists and lawyers representing the affected populations from the nearby slums say the tragedy of this disaster is that it continues unabated.
"After the disaster, Union Carbide did this botched site remediation and created a massive landfill," said Rajan Sharma, a New York-based lawyer, who is demanding that Dow Chemical clean up the site and purify the water supply.
"There are thousands of tonnes of toxic chemical waste which have been not been properly disposed inside and just outside the factory site which have been seeping into the ground for years."
There are also around 340 metric tonnes of chemical waste stored inside a warehouse inside the plant which needs to be disposed of.
Authorities also have for years denied that the water is contaminated, saying that various studies commissioned by the government have found no evidence of pollution.
However, the CSE report released on Tuesday contradicts the government's findings, saying that samples taken from around the factory site were found to contain chlorinated benzene compounds and organochlorine pesticides 561 times the national standard.
Samples taken as far as 3 km away from the plant were found to have toxic chemicals which were 38.6 times more than the standard.
The report said the profile of the chemicals found in samples from within the site matched the chemicals in drinking water in the outside colonies, leaving no doubt that there could be no other source of these toxins than Union Carbide.
HEALTH IMPACT?
As dawn breaks over the slums of Jai Prakash Nagar, located directly opposite the plant, women brave the cool winter air to gather water at the communal taps with their buckets.
They chatter among themselves, talking about their activities for the rest of the day and complaining about their children who are coughing or having breathing problems.
"You can smell it ...this water is poison and I hate giving it to my children to drink, but we are poor and have no choice," said 55-year-old Savitri, whose husband and son died a year after the disaster due to respiratory problems.
"The water supply doesn't come every day, so we have to take what we can get," added Leela, whose two infant sons suffer from breathlessness.
Others say they and others in their families often have stomach pains, gastric problems, diarrhoea and joint pains as a result of the water.
Experts however say there has been no long-term epidemiological research on people drinking the water which conclusively proves that their health problems are directly related to the water.
Activists say such evidence would help strengthen their case against Dow Chemical to get the site cleared up and gain compensation for affected communities.
"The Indian government obviously wants multinationals to invest more," said Dominique Lapierre, co-author of the book "Five Past Midnight in Bhopal" based on the tragedy and a supporter of the victims.
"If they are seen to be bringing companies like Dow Chemicals to book, it will deter others from coming here."
But government officials deny this.
"There is no pollution and even if there was, it got drained away by the monsoons years ago," Babulal Gaur, the minister responsible for the relief and rehabilitation of the affected communities, told AlertNet.
"I have visited the site several times and even drunk the water in the area and nothing ever happened to me," said Gaur, who wants to convert the 89Â?acre site, considered to be prime real estate in the city, to include a reference library, lecture hall and memorial to the victims of the disaster.
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