# Bhopal responsibility.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bhopal-responsibility/690833>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [June 15, 2014, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bhopal-responsibility/690833 "2014-06-15T17:04:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![pdunderhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4bbf92/32.png) [@pdunderhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pdunderhill)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2014, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bhopal-responsibility/690833/1 "2014-06-15T17:04:21Z")

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Hello good people,  
thirty years on from the release of contamination into the City surrounding the Union Carbide, now Dow, pesticides site in Bhopal, Northern India, my question is whether UC or Dow Chemicals have ever really responsibility for cleaning the site.  
4,000 immediate deaths, toxic subsoil and a compromised water table.

> **[Bhopal disaster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster)**
>
> The Bhopal disaster or Bhopal gas tragedy was a chemical accident on the night of 2–3 December 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. Considered the world's worst industrial disaster, over 500,000 people in the small towns around the plant were exposed to the highly toxic gas methyl isocyanate (MIC). Estimates vary on the death toll, with the official number of immediate deaths being 2,259. In 2008, the Government of Madhya Pradesh p T...

Dow turnover 2013, $57,000,000,000  
Hmmm,

Peter

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**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2014, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bhopal-responsibility/690833/2 "2014-06-15T21:47:38Z")

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They paid a settlement in 1989.

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**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2014, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bhopal-responsibility/690833/3 "2014-06-16T02:07:50Z")

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Also half a dozen or so UCIL (the Indian company that owned and operated the plant) employees were fined and imprisoned briefly. UCIL is now Eveready Industries India. [http://www.evereadyindustries.com/](http://www.evereadyindustries.com/)