MUMBAI: A new film depicting the toxic gas leak that killed thousands in India’s Bhopal city puts the blame squarely on Union Carbide for the disaster, the director said.
Indian filmmaker Ravi Kumar rejected criticism that “Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain” was too soft on the US company, saying he had told the truth in the film.
The movie opens in Indian cinemas on Friday, just days after the 30th anniversary of the Dec. 2 tragedy, whose victims are still fighting for better compensation.
Starring Hollywood’s Martin Sheen and already showing in US cinemas, the movie has been accused of placing greater blame on Indian management at the chemical factory and less on Union Carbide.
Around 3,500 people were killed soon after the factory spewed a cloud of gas over Bhopal, and up to 25,000 died in the years that followed.
Those living near the factory who survived suffered related illnesses, while women gave birth to children with deformities.
“We have tried to tell the events as they unfolded. When the audience comes out of the film there’s no doubt who was at fault,” Kumar told AFP.
“It’s the American Union Carbide Corporation that has the responsibility of the disaster. That’s the truth and that is what we have told in the film,” he said.
Kumar suggested lessons still needed to be learnt from the tragedy.
“The mechanism for most industrial disasters... is eerily familiar — cost-cutting, corporate greed, untrained staff and ignorance of early warning signs by the management.”
“We want to ensure that accidents such as Bhopal belong in the history books.”
The screenplay is based on court evidence, correspondence, testimonies, hospital and forensic records and memories and experiences of survivors and Carbide workers.
Sheen plays Warren Anderson, CEO of Union Carbide, which was taken over by Dow Chemical in 2001.
Kumar said the central fictional character, Dilip, is an amalgamation of the many survivors and victims.
“Our aim was to convey the message of the disaster while entertaining the audience with the thriller drama of the film,” he said.
Hollywood’s Mischa Barton plays a lifestyle reporter in the film, who helps an Indian journalist portrayed by Kal Penn. Indian actors Rajpal Yadav and Tannishtha Chatterjee star as the victims.
Movie ‘tells truth’ of Bhopal disaster
Movie ‘tells truth’ of Bhopal disaster
NASA and families of fallen astronauts mark 40th anniversary of space shuttle Challenger accident
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida: Families of the astronauts lost in the space shuttle Challenger accident gathered back at the launch site Thursday to mark that tragic day 40 years ago.
All seven on board were killed when Challenger broke apart following liftoff on Jan. 28, 1986.
At the Kennedy Space Center memorial ceremony, Challenger pilot Michael Smith’s daughter, Alison Smith Balch, said through tears that her life forever changed that frigid morning, as did many other lives. “In that sense,” she told the hundreds of mourners, “we are all part of this story.”
“Every day I miss Mike,” added his widow, Jane Smith-Holcott, “every day’s the same.”
The bitter cold weakened the O-ring seals in Challenger’s right solid rocket booster, causing the shuttle to rupture 73 seconds after liftoff. A dysfunctional culture at NASA contributed to that disaster and, 17 years later, shuttle Columbia’s.
Kennedy Space Center’s deputy director Kelvin Manning said those humble and painful lessons require constant vigilance “now more than ever” with rockets soaring almost every day and the next astronaut moonshot just weeks away.
Challenger’s crew included schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe, who was selected from thousands of applicants representing every state. Two of her fellow teacher-in-space contenders — both retired now — attended the memorial.
“We were so close together,” said Bob Veilleux, a retired astronomy high school teacher from New Hampshire, McAuliffe’s home state.
Bob Foerster, a sixth grade math and science teacher from Indiana who was among the top 10 finalists, said he’s grateful that space education blossomed after the accident and that it didn’t just leave Challenger’s final crew as “martyrs.”
“It was a hard reality,” Foerster noted at the Space Mirror Memorial at Kennedy’s visitor complex.
Twenty-five names are carved into the black mirror-finished granite: the Challenger seven, the seven who perished in the Columbia disaster on Feb. 1, 2003, the three killed in the Apollo 1 fire on Jan. 27, 1967, and all those lost in plane and other on-the-job accidents.
Relatives of the fallen Columbia and Apollo crews also attended NASA’s Day of Remembrance, held each year on the fourth Thursday of January. The space agency also held ceremonies at Virginia’s Arlington National Cemetery and Houston’s Johnson Space Center.
“You always wonder what they could have accomplished” had they lived longer, Lowell Grissom, brother of Apollo 1 commander Gus Grissom, said at Kennedy. “There was a lot of talent there.”
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