Warren M. Anderson, who headed Union Carbide when a chemical leak killed thousands of people in Bhopal, India, in 1984, has died in Florida. He was 92.
Mr. Anderson ran Union Carbide when, on the morning of Dec. 3, 1984, a pesticide plant run by one of its subsidiaries leaked about 40 tons of deadly methyl isocyanate gas into the air of the Indian city of Bhopal, killing about 4,000 people. Many more died in the following months, bringing the estimated death toll to 15,000.
In all, at least 500,000 people were affected, with direct injuries or birth defects blamed on the leak, the Indian government has said.
Just after the disaster, Mr. Anderson traveled to India, where he was briefly arrested. He left the country while free on bail.
But the disaster, and its lingering effects, remains an open wound in India, where many consider Union Carbide’s $470 million settlement with the Indian government an insult. Union Carbide is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dow Chemical.
The Indian government made a renewed push to extradite Mr. Anderson, then 90, from the United States in 2011, but the effort was not successful. Indian prosecutors wanted to try him on culpable-homicide charges.
In a 2009 interview with the Associated Press, Mr. Anderson’s wife, Lillian, said, “He’s been haunted for many years” by the disaster.
She said her husband was unfairly targeted.
“Every time somebody wanted to sue the company, there would be some kind of a thing that happened and they would be chasing after Warren, following him to the dump with our trash,” she said. “This is 25 years of unfair treatment, before CEOs were paid what they’re paid today.”
The company has maintained that the leak was caused by employee sabotage. Activists blame lax safety standards or faulty plant design.
