Bhopal: A Continuing Tragedy >> About Bhopal >> Before/After Comparison

Before/After Comparison

            Before the tragedy in Bhopal was filled with a normal day's activities. The families went about their daily business- housework for the women and children, maybe even school for the children, and the men at work to make an income. However, although much of this hasn't changed, the gas tragedy has affected the ability to do some of these once normal activities.

              For the rich, they are able to afford education, clean water, and other necessities of life, and were able to get away in time from the tragedy due to their transportation resources, but it was really the poor who were most affected by the tragedy.

             For them, the tragedy has changed their lives the most.  In a way it has made them more poor than they were before. As they were not able to escape the tragedy due to their lack of  transportation, they were part of the public directly affected by the gas, and who still use contaminated water for their daily chores. Also, the side effects of this gas tragedy include loss of vision, weaker limbs, birth defects such as syndactyly, cleft lip, and finally the loss of endurance most affects the poor in the way that they cannot work.

           Being poor, everyone in the household is usually required to stay at home and help work to make money to  cover the costs of their food and daily survival. The children do not attend school as it costs money to send children to school, and most of the poor do not have enough money to send even one child to school. This makes it a vicious cycle of illiteracy.  Not only does not sending children to school make them unable to read, or be educated, but they are unable to attain jobs that have higher salaries with education as a requirement. So, when the children grow up to have their own families, they are incapable of sending their own children to school, due to a lack of money. Being affected by the gas tragedy makes it even worse, as now, the physical labor is very  hard to do. Their bodies are weak, and they are unable to perform those jobs that require labor. So while the rich have been unaffected since the beginning, and have resources like clean water, and schooling for  their children,  the poor people, are unable to afford clean water, and keep affecting their health by using the contaminated water. This then prevents the poor from working at most jobs available to them normally. It creates a bigger lack of income, and this cycle keeps going on and on, getting worse each year.

“Life is one of those precious fleeting gifts, and everything can change in a heartbeat.”

-Author Unknown, well known and used quotation.