India says Bhopal disaster site still highly poisonous
Earth Times | 07 Feb 2010
New Delhi - Twenty-five years after the gas tragedy in the central city of Bhopal, the country's pollution agency has confirmed huge quantities of chemicals in underground water and soil around the site, a newspaper reported Sunday. Although previous investigations found presence of highly toxic substances in the radius of the Union Carbide plant, the government study is significant given the official government position that the site was safe.
The Central Pollution Control Board made the findings in its latest study conducted in the 2.4-kilometre radius of the closed chemical factory, the Hindustan Times reported.
The study discovered high levels of chloroform and benzene in underground water, mostly near residential areas.
The contaminants can cause headache and nausea. Prolonged exposure can lead to respiratory distress and even coma.
"In some cases, the toxins were found to be several hundred times more than the permissible limits for drinking water," the study said.
The level of mercury found in the water was 7995 parts per million (ppm). World Health Organization standards prescribe that mercury in water should not be more than 0.1 ppm.
"The contamination is abnormally high," the agency's chairman, SP Gautam, told the newspaper.
"Toxins from chemicals in the factory would have seeped into the ground and reached the water table," he added.
In December, a study released by Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, said groundwater in areas even 3 kilometres from the factory contained almost 40 times more pesticides than Indian standards.
The government has rejected claims that several thousand people were still suffering from effects of contamination, and maintained that communities near the site had been supplied with clean water.
Victim and environmental groups have been demanding the cleanup of toxic waste and criticized the "callous" attitude of authorities to the victims of the gas leak of December 3, 1984.
According to official data, the accident - one of the biggest industrial disasters in history - killed 15,274 people. But other assessments by independent groups such as Greenpeace say as many as 25,000 people died.
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