W. M. Anderson, 92, Dies; Faced India Plant Disaster
- 5 years ago
Warren M. Anderson, a Brooklyn carpenter’s son who ascended to the top of the Union Carbide Corporation, where he grappled with the ravages of a poisonous gas leak at the company’s plant in Bhopal, India, in 1984 that killed thousands in one of history’s most lethal industrial accidents, died on Sept. 29 at a nursing home in Vero Beach, Fla. He was 92.
His death, which was not announced by his family, was confirmed from public records.
In an interview with The New York Times five months after the tragedy, Mr. Anderson spoke of his feelings of loss and helplessness. “You wake up in the morning thinking, can it have occurred?” he said. “And then you know it has and you know it’s something you’re going to have to struggle with for a long time.”
Mr. Anderson was highly praised for his courage in going to Bhopal four days after the accident, where he was immediately arrested. But after quickly paying bail, he never returned to face trial.
The Indian government made multiple requests to extradite him, and officially labeled him a fugitive. A judge there called him an “absconder.”
In 2010, after eight low-level Indian executives of Union Carbide’s Bhopal subsidiary were convicted of negligence, a writer for rediff.com, an Indian news site, visited Mr. Anderson’s immaculately landscaped home in the Hamptons. Reflecting Indian public opinion that he deserved punishment as the ultimate culprit, the writer imagined a future that never happened: “10 to 20 years in a dirty, overcrowded, rat-infested Indian prison.”
The Bhopal horror began around midnight on Dec. 2-3, 1984, when a chemical reaction in a plant that made insecticides caused a leak of toxic gases that swept through the surrounding community. The government of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh confirmed 3,787 deaths as a result. Unofficial estimates exceeded 10,000. More than a half-million people were injured, with many dying from illnesses including lung cancer, kidney failure and liver disease.
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His death, which was not announced by his family, was confirmed from public records.
In an interview with The New York Times five months after the tragedy, Mr. Anderson spoke of his feelings of loss and helplessness. “You wake up in the morning thinking, can it have occurred?” he said. “And then you know it has and you know it’s something you’re going to have to struggle with for a long time.”
Mr. Anderson was highly praised for his courage in going to Bhopal four days after the accident, where he was immediately arrested. But after quickly paying bail, he never returned to face trial.
The Indian government made multiple requests to extradite him, and officially labeled him a fugitive. A judge there called him an “absconder.”
In 2010, after eight low-level Indian executives of Union Carbide’s Bhopal subsidiary were convicted of negligence, a writer for rediff.com, an Indian news site, visited Mr. Anderson’s immaculately landscaped home in the Hamptons. Reflecting Indian public opinion that he deserved punishment as the ultimate culprit, the writer imagined a future that never happened: “10 to 20 years in a dirty, overcrowded, rat-infested Indian prison.”
The Bhopal horror began around midnight on Dec. 2-3, 1984, when a chemical reaction in a plant that made insecticides caused a leak of toxic gases that swept through the surrounding community. The government of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh confirmed 3,787 deaths as a result. Unofficial estimates exceeded 10,000. More than a half-million people were injured, with many dying from illnesses including lung cancer, kidney failure and liver disease.
For More information on this news visit: http://www.itvnewsindia.com/
For More information on this news, visit: http://www.itvnewsindia.com/hindi
Connect with us on Social platform at: http://www.facebook.com/InformationTV
Subscribe to our You Tube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/itvnewsindia