BHOPAL: Hundreds of thousands of babies have been born in the years since a deadly gas billowed over Bhopal in 1984, but the survivors of that night say their children have been forever stunted by the tragedy.

Thousands died in the early hours of Dec 3, 1984, when the central Indian town’s Union Carbide pesticide plant disgorged 40 tonnes of lethal methyl isocyanate gas in one of the world’s worst environmental disasters.

Tens of thousands more survived but suffered severely disabling effects from the gas.

Activists say their own research shows the gas leak is claiming another generation of victims — and are calling for new medical studies to be carried out on reproductive defects related to the leak.

Children born to those exposed to the gas are smaller, thinner and have disproportionately shrunken torsos compared to those born to unexposed parents, they say.

“Research done in the past is insufficient and key aspects of the disaster and its aftermath have been ignored in research projects,” Satinath Sarangi, who runs the Sambhavna Trust, an advocacy group and charity dedicated to the gas victims, said.

He said that the Indian Council for Medical Research, which carried out most of the studies of the after-effects of the disaster, wrapped up its studies too soon.

“Most studies done by ICMR were terminated as early as 1989 and the rest by 1994,” said Sarangi, who plans to release the findings of research carried out by his organisation on Monday’s anniversary of the gas leak.

“Pleas for continuing the studies were ignored.”

Some of the ICMR studies from that time showed that children of exposed mothers had delayed physical and mental development.

The government has estimated that half a million people were exposed to the toxic gas when it leaked in 1984 and officials say about 800,000 people still suffer from various after-effects of inhaling the poisonous fumes.

A 1985 study by the Medico Friends Circle, a volunteer group of health workers, found that babies born to women pregnant at the time of the gas disaster suffered from severe malformations.

Chronic exposure to dangerous chemicals that have seeped into soil and groundwater around the plant site also remains an understudied concern.

Activists say Dow Chemical, which took over Union Carbide in 2001, should clean up the site.

But Dow has long insisted that all liabilities regarding the disaster were settled when Union Carbide concluded a $470 million compensation settlement with New Delhi in 1989.

Survivors also blame the Indian government for failing to make sure that money went to providing adequate health care or compensation to survivors of the tragedy.

“Children suffering congenital deformities continue to be denied medical attention,” said Rashida Bee, a gas leak survivor and activist with the Chingari Trust, which works with victims of the tragedy.

“The problem in the second generation due to gas exposure is one that will affect tens of thousands, and potentially many more in the future,” warned survivor Champa Devi Shukla, vice president of the Bhopal Gas Affected Stationary Workers’ Union, which represents staff of units established by the government to rehabilitate survivors.—AFP