Washington: Warren Anderson, the former CEO of Union Carbide Corp, has died at 92 after living for 30 years under the shadow of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy that killed thousands.
The death of the man under whose watch the tragedy that still haunts India took place was reported by the New York Times yesterday, more than a month after he died on September 29 at a nursing home in Vero Beach, Florida.
The family did not announce the death. The Times said it had confirmed from public records after an article appeared in Vero Beach 32963, the weekly newspaper of the Vero Beach barrier island. Rights activists in Bhopal said it was a pity Anderson died without facing trial for the horrific gas disaster. Activists also denounced the Indian and US governments for not taking steps to have him extradited to India.
Anderson flew to Bhopal four days after the world’s worst industrial disaster and was arrested. But after paying bail he left India and never returned to face trial.
The Daily Beast had earlier reported how Anderson lived the life of “an international fugitive” — after an Indian court issued an arrest warrant for him and he was declared an absconder. A 130-year-old white wooden frame house ringed by a white picket fence and shaded by tall maples and a garden in Bridgehampton in New York was his shelter.
That’s where the son of a Brooklyn carpenter who ascended to the top of Union Carbide lived since poisonous gas leaked from his company’s pesticide plant in Bhopal on the night of Dec 2-3, 1984. The gas killed over 3,000 people instantly and thousands others over the years. Thousands were injured and maimed, many suffering lung cancer, kidney failure, liver disease and eye disorders after coming into contact with methyl iso cyanate (MIC).
In 1989, Union Carbide paid $470m to the Indian government to settle litigation stemming from the disaster. The settlement was denounced by rights activists as peanuts in view of the tragedy.
IANS
