In yet another blow to the survivors of the Bhopal gas disaster, a US district court has dismissed a plea seeking to make Union Carbide liable for contamination caused by its pesticide plant in Bhopal. Seventeen survivors of the 1984 gas leak tragedy had filed a case against the corporation in 1999 in the US district court in Manhattan.

A large numbers of subjects were exposed to the aerosol of methyl isocyanate (MIC) during Bhopal gas disaster and lung was one of the most commonly affected organs. The aim of the present study was to analyze retrospectively the lung function abnormalities among the surviving MIC exposed population (gas victims) and to compare it with the non-MIC exposed (non gas exposed) population.

The Union Carbide India Ltd (UCIL) factory at Bhopal, abandoned after the world’s worst industrial disaster that took place on December 3, 1984, is still heavily contaminated with a range of persistent pollutants.

A case under various sections of IPC was registered against then Union Carbide Corporation chairman Warren Anderson and several functionaries of the company for causing immense loss to human and cattle life. But it has not been handled with due care. There are so many disturbing aspects of the whole episode, reports N D Sharma from Bhopal.