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Dow Accepts Responsibility for Bhopal -- Spokesman
Fri Dec 3, 2004 05:26 AM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - Dow Chemical Co, in a major policy reversal, is accepting full responsibility for the 1984 Bhopal disaster in India, a company spokesman said on Friday.
"Today I am very, very happy to announce that today, for the first time Dow is accepting full responsibility for the Bhopal catastrophe," company spokesman Jude Finisterra told BBC World television. "This is a momentous occasion."
"We have a $12 billion plan to finally at long last fully compensate the victims including the 120,000 who may need medical care for their entire lives and to fully and swiftly remediate the Bhopal plant site."
More than 3,500 died after lethal gas escaped from a chemical plant in the central Indian city of Bhopal. The factory was owned by Union Carbide, now a subsidiary of Dow Chemical.
"We have resolved to liquidate Union Carbide, this nightmare for the world and this headache for Dow and use the $12 billion to provide more than $500 per victim, which is all that they've seen," Finisterra said, speaking on the 20th anniversary of the disaster.
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