Authorities in the Indian city of Bhopal, site of a devastating industrial accident, have decided against opening up the factory at the center of the tragedy, a local official said Friday.
The controversial idea, announced earlier this month, was that the Union Carbide plant would be opened for a week to mark the 25th anniversary of the accident in a bid to dispel fears the site was still harmful.
It sparked protests from victims' groups, who said the step would put people in danger and was insensitive toward the tens of thousands estimated to have been killed by the gas leak from the factory Dec. 3, 1984.
Gas Relief and Rehabilitation Minister Babulal Gaur from the Madhya Pradesh state government said the factory wouldn't be opened because it could be seen as influencing voters ahead of local elections.
He cited a "code of conduct" which forbids governments in India from making any major policy announcements ahead of polls, set to take place Dec. 19 and 21 in the state.
"We do not want to violate the code of conduct. The factory would be surely opened up, but maybe in January after the election process is over," the minister said.
The disaster killed between 8,000 and 10,000 people within the first three days, according to independent data from the state-run Indian Council of Medical Research, or ICMR, and hundreds of thousands more still suffer from the effects of exposure to the fumes and contamination of land and water.
A storage tank at a pesticide plant run by U.S. group Union Carbide--purchased by Dow Chemical Co. in 1999--leaked more than 40 tons of methyl isocyanate gas into the surrounding densely populated slums of Bhopal.
(Source: http://irco.biz)
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