This photo, taken in November 2024, shows the closed Union Carbide plant in Bhopal (Gagan NAYAR)
Gagan NAYAR/AFP/AFP
By AFP - Agence France Presse
Indian duo self-immolate in protest against Bhopal waste
Two people in India set themselves on fire on Friday to protest against the disposal of hazardous waste from the decades-old Bhopal industrial disaster, local government officials said.
Images on social media showed the two men dousing themselves with liquid before being engulfed in flames, although authorities said the men survived.
The protests erupted on Friday after authorities transferred hundreds of tons of hazardous waste - left over from the world's deadliest industrial disaster in the city of Bhopal 40 years ago - to the town of Pithampur for disposal.
“The self-immolation attempt was unfortunate, but the two people are safe now,” said Priyank Mishra, chief administrative officer of Dhar district, where Pithampur is located.
A long convoy of trucks with a police escort carrying the 337 tons of waste - sealed in containers - arrived in Pithampur, in the state of Madhya Pradesh, on Wednesday evening.
The waste dates back to the December 1984 disaster at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, when around 3,500 people died shortly after a chemical leaked, and it is estimated that up to 25,000 people died in total.
Twenty-seven tons of methyl isocyanate (MIC), used in the production of pesticides, swept through the city of more than two million people after one of the tanks storing the deadly chemical broke through its concrete shell.
For decades, communities have attributed the high level of illness to the contamination of groundwater after the highly toxic gas leaked.
The order to remove the waste was given in December, and Mishra insisted that the disposal would be done safely.
“The process is being carried out under the aegis of the country's leading scientific institutions,” he said.
“We have already held many public consultations, and we will continue to explain to people, in even simpler terms, that this is a safe exercise.”
The chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, Mohan Singh, also said that the experimental disposal exercises showed that there was “no impact on the environment.”
In Bhopal, tests carried out in the past on groundwater near the site revealed the presence of chemicals that cause cancer and birth defects 50 times above what is accepted as safe by the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Communities attribute a range of health problems - including cerebral palsy, hearing and speech impairments, and other disabilities - to the accident and groundwater contamination.
sai/pjm/fox
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