Warren Anderson is a wealthy man. He lives near the Atlantic Ocean. In the summer months, Mr. Anderson and his wife Lillian live in the Hamptons, on Long Island. In winter, they live near the Florida coast.
In 1984, Warren Anderson was chief executive officer of the Union Carbide Corporation. In December of that year, a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India leaked methyl isocyanate gas, killing between three and four thousand people immediately. Different numbers are reported by different sources. The people who lived and died in Bhopal are very poor and poor people, alive or dead, are rarely counted accurately.
Warren Anderson did not intend that any gas should leak from the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal. He did not intend that anyone should die. On the other hand, the Union Carbide plant was found to have taken very few precautions to protect its workers or the people who lived nearby. Worse still, Union Carbide, under Mr. Anderson’s leadership fought attempts by the Indian government to claim damages on behalf of the Bhopal victims.
The Indian government filed suit for $3 billion, but in 1989 the suit was settled for $470 million. India, a poor nation, was forced to settle because more victims of Bhopal were dying every week and cash was needed to treat those still alive but ill.
Eighteen years after the gas leak, somewhere between 12,000 and 15,000 people in Bhopal have died as a result of Union Carbide’s negligence. Another 150,000 people are still ill from the methyl isocyanate that leaked that night. People suffer from tuberculosis, heart disease, blindness, digestive and gynecological ailments. The Bhopal victims who have received money from the Union Carbide settlement got an average of $500 each.
Warren Anderson is a wealthy man. He lives near the Atlantic Ocean. His house in the Hamptons has four bedrooms and four bathrooms. It is valued at over one million dollars. Union Carbide no longer exists. It became part of Dow Chemical in 2001. The Union Carbide plant in Bhopal has been closed and abandoned, but it was never cleaned up. Industrial poisons continue to seep into the soil there. Approximately 225,000 people live within two miles of the abandoned factory.
In 1991, a court in India charged Warren Anderson with “culpable homicide” for his role in the gas leak at Bhopal. The United States and India have a mutual extradition treaty, but Mr. Anderson has not been taken into custody. For years, he and his wife Lillian lived openly in New York and Florida, near the Atlantic Ocean.
In 1999, a class action lawsuit naming Warren Anderson as a defendant was filed in an American court. Mr. Anderson went into hiding to avoid being served papers in that lawsuit. It’s rare for the former CEO of a Fortune 500 company to go underground, to disappear from public view, yet almost no mention of this was made in the American press.
Last week, a court in India renewed the charges against Warren Anderson and again called for his extradition. If Warren Anderson is brought to trial in India and convicted, he faces a maximum of 10 years in prison. The United States government says it cannot find Warren Anderson. Reporters from The Mirror, a British newspaper, found Mr. Anderson at his four-bathroom home in the Hamptons. He refused to speak to them. The environmental group Greenpeace staged a demonstration at Mr. Anderson’s house. The government cannot find Mr. Anderson.
In Bhopal, people are blind; they have difficulty breathing and walking. Warren Anderson is a wealthy man. He lives near the Atlantic Ocean.
Where’s Warren?
Warren Anderson is a wealthy man. He lives near the Atlantic Ocean. In the summer months, Mr. Anderson and his wife Lillian live in the Hamptons, on Long Island. In winter, they live near the Florida coast.
In 1984, Warren Anderson was chief executive officer of the Union Carbide Corporation. In December of that year, a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India leaked methyl isocyanate gas, killing between three and four thousand people immediately. Different numbers are reported by different sources. The people who lived and died in Bhopal are very poor and poor people, alive or dead, are rarely counted accurately.
Warren Anderson did not intend that any gas should leak from the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal. He did not intend that anyone should die. On the other hand, the Union Carbide plant was found to have taken very few precautions to protect its workers or the people who lived nearby. Worse still, Union Carbide, under Mr. Anderson’s leadership fought attempts by the Indian government to claim damages on behalf of the Bhopal victims.
The Indian government filed suit for $3 billion, but in 1989 the suit was settled for $470 million. India, a poor nation, was forced to settle because more victims of Bhopal were dying every week and cash was needed to treat those still alive but ill.
Eighteen years after the gas leak, somewhere between 12,000 and 15,000 people in Bhopal have died as a result of Union Carbide’s negligence. Another 150,000 people are still ill from the methyl isocyanate that leaked that night. People suffer from tuberculosis, heart disease, blindness, digestive and gynecological ailments. The Bhopal victims who have received money from the Union Carbide settlement got an average of $500 each.
Warren Anderson is a wealthy man. He lives near the Atlantic Ocean. His house in the Hamptons has four bedrooms and four bathrooms. It is valued at over one million dollars. Union Carbide no longer exists. It became part of Dow Chemical in 2001. The Union Carbide plant in Bhopal has been closed and abandoned, but it was never cleaned up. Industrial poisons continue to seep into the soil there. Approximately 225,000 people live within two miles of the abandoned factory.
In 1991, a court in India charged Warren Anderson with “culpable homicide” for his role in the gas leak at Bhopal. The United States and India have a mutual extradition treaty, but Mr. Anderson has not been taken into custody. For years, he and his wife Lillian lived openly in New York and Florida, near the Atlantic Ocean.
In 1999, a class action lawsuit naming Warren Anderson as a defendant was filed in an American court. Mr. Anderson went into hiding to avoid being served papers in that lawsuit. It’s rare for the former CEO of a Fortune 500 company to go underground, to disappear from public view, yet almost no mention of this was made in the American press.
Last week, a court in India renewed the charges against Warren Anderson and again called for his extradition. If Warren Anderson is brought to trial in India and convicted, he faces a maximum of 10 years in prison. The United States government says it cannot find Warren Anderson. Reporters from The Mirror, a British newspaper, found Mr. Anderson at his four-bathroom home in the Hamptons. He refused to speak to them. The environmental group Greenpeace staged a demonstration at Mr. Anderson’s house. The government cannot find Mr. Anderson.
In Bhopal, people are blind; they have difficulty breathing and walking. Warren Anderson is a wealthy man. He lives near the Atlantic Ocean.