Approaching 30 years: the Bhopal disaster [View all]

[Recursion]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster

I'll do a more full post on this in a couple of weeks on the actual anniversary, but I just wanted to say that we're approaching the 30-year anniversary of the Union Carbide plant's fatal disaster that killed more than 10,000 people in central India in late 1984.

Some of us here in India are working on a remembrance ceremony; I'll let you know how that goes (Madhya Pradesh, the state Bhopal is in, is actually being less helpful here than Union Carbide, depressingly enough).

In the meantime, allow me to suggest Americans view the Martin Sheen / Kal Penn / Mischa Barton movie Bhopal, A Prayer For Rain, which if my timing is right should have just opened last week in the US. Penn was unbelievable; Sheen was very powerful (almost too powerful; he makes you see the CEO's side too clearly...). Barton was the weak link, but with a cast like that, that's not a severe criticism. Yadav Rajpal, a veteran Bollywood star, was the highest billed local actor, and he was absolutely heartbreaking.

This was one of the most disastrous American industrial accidents in history, and we should be more aware of it.