New Generation Hit : Bhopal--Death Won’t Leave City

On July 19, 1986, Abdul Rahim and his family, all suffering from the effects of the Union Carbide gas disaster 19 months earlier, celebrated life. A son, Faiyun, had been born, and the father, a sickly, 38-year-old unemployed bus driver, believed he had made up to some extent for the deaths of his first wife and two children.

All three had been killed, along with more than 1,000 others, as they slept in a squatters’ colony next to the Union Carbide pesticide plant--victims of an explosion that turned Bhopal into a city of death Dec. 3, 1984.

The gas that spread over the area ruined Rahim’s body for life. It damaged his lungs beyond repair, it burned his eyes, and it left him so weak and gasping that he can no longer work, even if he could see well enough to do so.

Took a New Wife

Determined to beat the odds, Rahim took a new wife, Athita Bi, and the result was Faiyun, a chubby, smiling baby. Last week Rahim proudly showed a visitor an old photo of the boy playing with a stuffed lion on a tattered blanket in the mud squatter’s hut that is still Rahim’s home.

But the celebration was short-lived.

On Jan. 18, at 2:45 a.m., death returned to Rahim’s hovel. At the age of 2 1/2 years, Faiyun died. The cause of death: tubercular meningitis--a direct result, experts say, of genetic damage to Rahim and his new wife from the gas they had inhaled years earlier.

Faiyun’s death, Indian scientists say, was one of many that indicate that the tragedy of Bhopal is being visited on the next generation.

Indeed, death refuses to leave Bhopal, a city of less than a million people where an average of two people die every day as a result of the disaster at the Union Carbide plant. The official death toll now exceeds 3,000.

$470-Million Settlement

The tragedy was in the news again last month when the Indian government, which had unilaterally assumed the exclusive right to litigate on behalf of the tens of thousands of Bhopal victims, settled with Union Carbide out of court for $470 million.

The Feb. 15 settlement has triggered a wave of protest in Bhopal and also in New Delhi, where the Supreme Court is hearing a series of angry appeals from the victims. The victims contend that the amount of the settlement is too little and that they will never get their rightful share of the money. They say that the Indian government, which is in charge of distributing the money, was as much responsible for the disaster as Union Carbide, and therefore cannot be trusted to serve as the victims’ legal guardian.

Lost in the legal wrangling, which is likely to delay any compensation to the victims for many months, is the fact that for the victims the disaster is continuing. Death claims new victims every day and is reaching out for another generation.

Few know the tragedy of Bhopal better than Dr. Heeresh Chandra, Bhopal’s director of pathology and head of the municipal medical-legal institute that performed thousands of autopsies in the first days after 42 tons of liquid methyl isocyanate burst into the air in an accident of unparalleled proportions.

Chandra performed many of those autopsies himself. He continues to examine the bodies of people dying from the long-term effects. His research is now considered the most authoritative in the world.

The white-haired doctor is studying himself as well, and with growing alarm. Three weeks ago he was stricken by the same symptoms he has observed in his patients--and he has become a patient.

X-Ray Shows Effects

“I thought I had escaped,” Chandra said, holding an X-ray of his chest up to the light for a visiting reporter. “But you can see in this X-ray that I, too, am now suffering from the effects of these gases. I am gagging and coughing. I am weak. I have difficulty speaking. And there is no doubt it is from the gas.

“Now I feel that those who were in the core area were immediately knocked out in the first few days or months, but those of us on the periphery are coming in with the symptoms now. Four people in my department are suffering. My wife and son are suffering badly. And the drugs we took initially are no longer working.”

For Chandra and other scientists concerned about the medical impact of the Bhopal disaster, the long-term effects have defied outside scientific research and analysis.

Because of the extreme heat in the storage tank that erupted, Chandra said, the methyl isocyanate underwent a chemical reaction that released a mixture of at least four deadly gases in a combination so rare and lethal that it has had “no parallel anywhere in the world.”

Dr. M. P. Dwivedi, director of the council’s Bhopal gas disaster research project, said: “Mortality is definitely higher in the gas-affected areas, and it is affecting the second generation.”

Staggering Results

The initial results of the council’s study are staggering. The victims who initially survived the gas are continuing to suffer not only deterioration of their lungs, eyes and skin but also additional disorders that include ulcers, colitis, hysteria, neurosis and memory loss.

Children born to pregnant women exposed to the gas were born with abnormalities or died in infancy, and mortality among children conceived and born long after the disaster to exposed mothers and fathers, like Abdul Rahim and his second wife, continues to be higher than among a selected control group of unexposed parents.

Government official S. Sathyam has another, equally alarming view of the dimensions of the tragedy. Sathyam, keeper of the official records on the disaster, as well as the state’s overall coordinator of relief, said the process of registering and verifying victims’ claims was once a disorganized bureaucratic nightmare but in the past 18 months has been streamlined.

3,415 Deaths Certified

Claims have been filed by the families of 5,100 dead, and Sathyam said that 3,415 of these have been certified as officially caused by the gas.

In addition, 592,000 personal injury claims have been filed, of which only 40,000 have been certified as gas-related. The state still has a backlog of more than 100,000 claims, and Sathyam said he receives about 500 new claims a day.

In both categories, he said, there have been thousands of fake claimants who have been eliminated.

Sathyam said the verification procedure is tedious but insisted that the state of Madhya Pradesh is doing all it can to speed the process and help the victims. Already it has spent $62 million on new hospitals and doctors to treat the victims and verify their claims, and it recently submitted a $255-million, multi-year relief budget to the central government in New Delhi.

60,000 Seriously Injured

Such numbers are lost on the largely illiterate and impoverished victims. Medical and official sources estimate that 60,000 of them have been seriously affected by the gas. What is not lost on them is the psychological impact of the bureaucracy that has controlled their lives since the incident occurred.

When Abdul Rahim arrived home the other day from yet another unsuccessful job interview, he carried with him a yellowed folder containing the death certificates of his first wife and children, the state medical verification of his own illnesses, notices for hearings on medical claims, prescriptions for drugs that he said do not work and assorted documents he says he does not understand.

Rahim, asked how he felt about the $470-million settlement, replied: “It is unfair, but how can I tell you the value of my dead wife and children? I do not know how much I should get, and I don’t know how to get it. All I know is until now I have gotten only 40,000 rupees (the equivalent of $2,700) in interim relief, and half of it has gone to medical bills and medicines. As for the settlement, we don’t believe we’ll get that until the money is actually in our hands.”

Along a narrow lane in the squatters’ colony, others echoed Rahim’s words.

Youngest Brother Died

Noor Mian, 25, said his youngest brother, Qadir, died a month ago at the age of 2. From a battered metal box stuffed with the tattered pages of his family’s bureaucratic record he produced medical records confirming that the gas was to blame.

“Union Carbide and the government of India are offering peanuts to pay for generations that will be lost,” he said, holding up his 4-month-old son, Salim, to show how he wheezes and gags.

A neighbor, Shahzadi Bi, said that she too lost an infant son last year.

“Right from the time he was born, his lungs were hardly functioning at all,” she said. “His last two months he spent in the hospital, but nothing could save him.”

Back at Rahim’s house, a friend, Brijpal Singh, who was poisoned along with his wife, expressed the bitterness of the place where so many have died and are dying.

Distrusts Government

“How can we trust this government of India, this government of goondas (thugs), when the money for the victims is being doled out to doctors and hospital building contractors and siphoned off by crooks in the government itself?

“You know, it is just so painful to watch this happening to us. The lucky ones are the ones who are dead already. They no longer have to watch their few rupees stolen by doctors who aren’t helping, and they no longer have to watch their loved ones die slowly.

“The dead ones are the only happy ones in Bhopal. Their problems are over. Ours grow worse.”

One could hardly argue, watching Chandra in his office at the Gandhi Medical Center. After an hourlong interview, Chandra looked up at the reporter and said, “I hope this is your last question.”

Then he began gagging and choking, his head between his knees, struggling for breath.

He waved a silent farewell to his visitor.

STATISTICS ON THE BHOPAL DISASTER

On Dec. 3, 1984, 42 tons of liquid methyl isocyanate burst into the air at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, releasing a mixture of at least four deadly gases over a slum neighborhood and creating a disaster whose effects are still being felt. Among the statistics:

Official Death Toll--3,415, with deaths continuing almost daily.

Living Victims--60,000 seriously affected, according to estimates by medical and official sources.

Medical Effects--The gas seared lungs, burned eyes and skin and led to ulcers, colitis, hysteria, neurosis and memory loss. When pregnant women were exposed to the gas, their children often were born abnormal or died in infancy.

Legal Claims--592,000 personal injury claims have been filed, plus claims filed by families of 5,100 dead.

Settlement--In February, the Indian government, which had decreed that it would litigate on the victims’ behalf, settled out of court with Union Carbide for $470 million. However, the settlement angered many, and the Indian Supreme Court is hearing appeals by victims demanding more.