In The New York Times Op-Ed section, on Thursday, December 3, 2009, Suketu Mehta, a journalism professor at New York University, contributed an article, “A Cloud Still Hangs Over Bhopal” on the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal gas disaster that started one night when a pesticide plant, owned by the American chemical giant Union Carbide, leaked a cloud of poisonous gas. Before the sun rose, more than 4,000 people were killed. Half a million more became ill, many with severely damaged lungs and eyes.

An additional 15,000 have since died from the aftereffects, and 10 to 30 are said to die every month from the hundreds of tons of toxic waste left over in the former factory. The site has still not been cleaned up, because Dow Chemical , which since acquired Union Carbide, refuses to accept any responsibility.

The groundwater is contaminated: children of the survivors suffer from genetic abnormalities, and the victims have long since run out of their measly compensation and are begging on the streets.

In 2002, the maker of napalm married the bane of Bhopal. Dow Chemical bought Bhopal for 6.1 billion.

The Indian government, afraid of driving away investors, let the companies get by with the injustice. As Representative Frank Pallone was quoted by Mehta as saying, “In Bhopal, some of the world’s poorest people are being mistreated by one of the richest corporations.”

In 1995, a Bhopali woman, named Sajida Bano, wanted someone to understand the disconnection between the managers and the suffering little people, so she sat down and wrote a letter to Union Carbide. The factory had killed her husband, and a factory accident had killed her four-year old son. She wrote:

You put your hand on your heart and think: If this happened to you, how would you and your wife and children feel?”

She never received a reply.

Lord have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
St. Francis Xavier, pray for the people of Bhopal.

Amen. Amen.

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