BHOPAL GAS TRAGEDY 25 YEARS LATER

BHOPAL MARKS DEVASTATING GAS LEAK
AS THE WORST INDUSTRIAL DISASTER IN HISTORY

BHOPAL, India (BBC News) - In December 1984, a cloud of poison gas escaped from the Union Carbide factory in the Indian city of Bhopal and went on to kill thousands of people. Forty tonnes of a toxin called methyl isocyanate leaked from the factory and settled over slums on 3 December 1984. Twenty-five years later, the tragedy continues so people in Bhopal have been marking 25 years since a leak at a gas plant killed thousands and left many more seriously ill. Activists and survivors marched through the city, chanting slogans against the government and Union Carbide - the US firm that owned the plant at the time.

Campaigners say at least 15,000 were killed within days and that the effects of the gas continue to this day. The site of the former pesticide plant is now abandoned. The state government of Madhya Pradesh took it over in 1998, but environmentalists say poison is still found there. Residents of the city have held a week of commemoration events in the lead-up to the anniversary. Early on Thursday, protesters marched to the site chanting: "Down with the government", and "Down with Union Carbide". One victim who joined the march told Reuters news agency: "Punish the guilty and remove the toxic waste from the plant that still contaminates the soil and groundwater." Campaigners say Bhopal has an unusually high incidence of children with birth defects and growth deficiency, as well as cancers, diabetes and other chronic illnesses. This is seen not only among survivors of the gas leak but among generations born much later, they say. On Wednesday, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said: "The enormity of that tragedy of neglect still gnaws at our collective conscience." He reaffirmed his government's "commitment to resolving issues of safe drinking water, expeditious clean-up of the site, continuation of medical research, and any other outstanding issues connected with the Bhopal gas tragedy".

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

Last message of Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur to His disciples before disappearance in Baghbazar Gaudiya Math, Calcutta - "With the sole purpose of worshipping Sri Hari we should pull on our life somehow in this most non-eternal world. We should not give up Hari-Bhajan inspite of hundreds of calamities, hundreds of obstacles, hundreds of reproaches and harassments. Don't be disheartened to serve Krishna without deceitfulness seeing majority of the worldly people are not accepting it. Don't give up your worship of Sri Krishna and your spiritual devotional wealth - listening and chanting Krishna-Katha, under any circumstances. Always do Hari-Kirtan with the two qualities of being humbler than a blade of grass and more tolerant than tree."

Śrīla Bhakti Ballabh Tirtha Maharaja :
From a letter published on Jul 16, 2002
by Sreecgmath - Sree Chaitanya Gaudiya Math