Bhopal hosts ‘Olympics’ against Dow Chemical

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Hundreds of survivors of the deadly 1984 Bhopal gas leak held a “Special Olympics” on Thursday with children suffering birth defects in an effort to shame Olympic sponsor Dow Chemical Co. on the eve of the London Games. Survivors say Dow owes them compensation for the world’s worst industrial disaster and have campaigned to have the chemical giant dropped as a sponsor of the Olympics.

Dow says it has no liability because it bought the company responsible for the plant more than a decade after the cases had been settled.

All sides acknowledge that what took place on the morning of December 3, 1984, in the city was a tragedy. A pesticide plant run by Union Carbide leaked about 40 tonnes of deadly methyl isocyanate gas into the air, killing an estimated 15,000 people and affecting at least 5,00,000 more, according to government estimates.

Activists say thousands of children have been born with brain damage, missing palates and twisted limbs because of their parents’ exposure to the gas or to contaminated water. Having failed to get Dow’s Olympic sponsorship quashed, Bhopal activists carried through with their threat to hold their own “Olympics” to showcase the devastation caused by the gas leak.

The event began on Thursday’s opening ceremony with children having cerebral palsy, partial paralysis and mental retardation parading in wheelchairs and walking with the assistance of others around a stadium overlooking the old pesticide plant.