Bhopal gas memorial to retain plant

The Union Carbide pesticide manufacturing plant in Bhopal that claimed thousands of lives on December 2, 1984, may cave in any day and the state government's recent plan to create a memorial there seems an uphill task.

Space Matters, a New Delhi-based design agency, had in 2005 won a commission to design a memorial to mark the Bhopal gas tragedy. The commission included retaining the original structure and revitalising 80 acres of land.

"We decided to retain the structure and building. We will send a proposal to Union government so that a further decision can be taken for the memorial," said Gauri Singh, principal secretary of the Bhopal gas relief and rehabilitation department.
 

Of the Rs 116 crore sanctioned earlier, Rs 10 crore has been spent on a protective wall. "Sanctioned funds are still with us, but now the cost may rise," Singh added.

Space Matters had readied a blueprint that " required social, survivor, government and ecological planning of the site", said another government official. "A memorial will require complete remediation of the area that contains nearly 1.5 million tonnes of contaminated soil," he added.

The state government has to transport 350 tonnes of toxic waste to an incineration site at Pithampur 250 km away.

"The entire structure should be retained," said Rachna Dhingra, chief activist of the Bhopal Group of Action and Information, a non-government organisation fighting for the survivors. The state government has not involved survivors in planning the memorial.

Survivors and non-government organisations have accused the government of allowing Union Carbide's former chairman Warren Anderson to flee the country, not pursuing his extradition, and of negotiating an out-of court "settlement" with the company.

Space Matters' memorial design is centred on remembrance, deterrence and healing. It tries to recreate the the world's worst industrial disaster through a timeline trail. "The memorial must point to the arguments India is facing on unplanned industrial growth," said another NGO activist.

Survivors of the tragedy have set up their own memorial, Remembering Bhopal Museum, in a rented house on Barasia Road near the factory. Conceptualised by Rama Lakshmi, a journalist, the museum has audio recordings of nearly 50 survivors who are struggling for their rights, pictures and memorabilia.

Other memorial sites from around the globe

Minamata Disease Municipal Museum
It collects and preserves valuable materials about Minamata disease which is considered as one of the earliest pollution problems in Japan that began in 1956 when Chisso Company started spilling Mercury in the sea. It exhibit and tell the history and present situation of Minamata disease and the hard situations that patients experienced. As many as 700,000 people from within Japan and from over 175 foreign countries have visited the museum.

Oppauer nitrogen site memorial
Explosion of Oppauer nitrogen site of BASF (A German Company) took place on 21 September 1921 in front of the Palatine community Oppau (Germany), which was in 1938 in the city of Ludwigshafen. Now it is the state of Rhineland- Palatinate. It claimed 561 lives and left 2000 injured. Almost all buildings were destroyed or damaged in Oppau. In the cemetery of Oppau a memorial stone was erected. In memory of the disaster wears a street within the BASF plant site the name "funnel street.

Chernobyl Nuclear Accident Memorial
On April 26, 1986, an explosion during testing sent radioactive fallout into the atmosphere that fatally contaminated the nearby areas and sending radioactive fallout across Europe. The resulting fire lasted 10 days, and released as much radiation as 400 Hiroshima bombs.

Today, tour groups travel up to within 300 meters of the destroyed reactor, which, despite being cocooned with a concrete sarcophagus, still emits more than 25 times normal ambient radiation,and standing so close has to be limited to about 10 minutes.