New Faces, New Bhopal
Bhopal, India 2019
Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh, home to 1.8 million inhabitants. To what extent does a city bear the weight of its history? Thirty-five years ago, the Union Carbide pesticide factory became the site of one of the world’s most catastrophic industrial disasters. On December 2, 1984, a gas leak enveloped the sleeping city with methyl isocyanate, claiming thousands of lives in a single suffocating night. Hundreds of thousands more suffered debilitating illnesses, ranging from respiratory disorders to organ failure, their lives irrevocably altered. Today, Bhopal is one of India’s fastest-growing cities and, as a billboard proclaims, “India’s cleanest capital.” The city has experienced rapid population growth in the years since, with many new districts emerging and reshaping its landscape. Yet, the old factory site and the nearby evaporation dumpsite remain uninhabitable and contaminated wastelands at the more and more populated outskirts of the city.
Union Carbide Goats & Harmonic Traffic Chaos
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Union Carbide Goats & Harmonic Traffic Chaos *
The municipal official who begrudgingly let us into the contaminated Union Carbide site made an exaggerated show of emphasizing that no one was permitted to be there. Yet, as we exited the grounds, we caught sight of a shepherd casually leaving the area as well, his goats grazing unperturbed in this toxic central wasteland.
Just a brief impression of the everyday street traffic I added this video because this really is something hard to capture in photographs.