Bhopal survivors bring message about chemical exposures to East Palestine

Farhat Jahan was five months old on the night of December 2, 1984 when an accident at the Union Carbide plant released a dangerous chemical, methyl isocyanate, or MIC, into the air.

“My father opened the door to see what was happening. As soon as he opened the door, gas came into our house and we all started running,” Jahan said during an audience at the Penn State Beaver in Monaca recently evening.

Through a translator, Jahan told the story that had been passed down through his family about what happened next. Her mother came to pick her up and tried to escape the smoke.

“She told me her eyes looked like someone had put acid in them. His lungs were choking him. She saw people dying around her, people in their own bodily fluids, dying as she ran. Women having abortions… right in front of her.

Bhopal was the worst industrial accident in world history. Up to 10,000 people died in the first days after the event. Some estimates indicate that this number increased to 20,000 more in the years that followed.

For its hundreds of thousands of survivors like Jahan, illness and loss followed. One of his sisters suffers from chronic kidney failure and requires dialysis several times a week to survive. Another sister, born four years after the disaster, died at the age of 24 from kidney failure. She leaves two daughters, one with serious intellectual and physical disabilities.

Today, Jahan is a community health researcher supporting families in Bhopal who are still dealing with the health effects of the disaster.

She came to Beaver County with the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal. The stop was part of an American tour aimed at raising awareness of the plight of Bhopal residents and calling on Union Carbide’s current owner, Dow Chemical, to clean up the still-polluted site.

Much of the plant’s safety equipment, such as a cooling unit to prevent chemical reactions and floor flares to burn off hazardous gases, had been dismantled or turned off by the company. The company had no plan to alert the community in the event of an emergency, with disastrous results.

“Even if people had been told not to run that night, to cover themselves with wet blankets and to stay home, many would have been saved,” said Rachna Dhingra, an ICJB organizer. “The faster people ran, the faster they died.”

“We are fighting so that no generation is born disabled. “As a result, we came here to ask this American company, Dow Chemical, to clean up its toxic waste.”

A company spokesperson said Dow purchased Union Carbide several years after a legal settlement was approved by India’s Supreme Court. (Union Carbide held a majority stake, 50.9%, from the factory owner, Union Carbide India Limited.)

That settlement was worth $470 million, and the families of those who died in the gas leak received an average of $2,200.

The rest of the population of Bhopal is still tending to their wounded. The city has a high rate of birth defects, even among babies born several years later.

Thousands of people still suffer from chronic health problems resulting from the disaster. Bati Bai Rajak, who also came to Beaver County, recounted her own mother’s chronic illness.

“My mother suffered from it. My mother suffers from pulmonary fibrosis and is completely dependent on an inhaler,” Rajak said.

A message for this region

The group wanted to come to Beaver County after witnessing the fiery derailment of the Norfolk Southern train in neighboring East Palestine, Ohio, last year. This released approximately one million pounds of toxic chemicals into the surrounding air and water.

They spoke a few miles from a new Shell chemical plant that has already been fined millions of dollars for polluting local air.

They were invited by Hilary Flint, communications director for the Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Community. Flint lives in Beaver County, a few miles from the scene of the derailment. She found similarities in the reactions of Norfolk Southern after the East Palestine derailment and Union Carbide after Bhopal.

“It’s the same playbook. They’re going through the same thing,” Flint said. “So a lot of the battles that they’ve won that are going on are things that we’re just at the beginning of.”

Dhingra said residents who have been exposed to toxic chemicals must be prepared to face challenges in getting answers from public authorities.

“The agencies responsible for monitoring your health and pollution will not be on your side. You will be the one trying to get that data,” she said. “Chemicals will be held innocent until proven guilty, but it will be the people who will be considered guilty, for lying and faking their injuries.”

This message resonated with Christina Siceloff, who came to hear the group speak. She lives in Beaver County, a few miles east of Palestine, where she monitors waterways for toxic chemicals despite assurances from regulators that everything is safe.

Siceloff has medical problems and fears they stem from his own exposure after the derailment.

“We have the same problem getting answers through medication. Like, what do we do? Siceloff said. “Is there anything we can do to fix this?” And there’s nothing you can do.

Last Wednesday, a federal judge approved a class-action settlement for East Palestine, where the maximum amount is $70,000 per household and an additional $25,000 per person for personal injury.

The Bhopal group will be in India in December to mark the 40th anniversary of the Union Carbide disaster.

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