BBC apologises after airing hoax Bhopal report

THE BBC apologised yesterday after being hoaxed into carrying a report on its world television service that a €9 billion compensation fund had been set up for survivors of the Bhopal disaster 20 years ago yesterday.

The report briefly raised the hopes of people in the central Indian city, where 15,000 people died following the release of pesticide gas from a US-owned plant on December 3, 1984

A man, claiming to be a spokesman for Dow Chemicals, which now owns Union Carbide, the company that operated the plant, told a reporter that it accepted full responsibility.

Dow immediately denied the report and the BBC said: “This interview was inaccurate and part of an elaborate deception.”

“We apologise to Dow and to anyone who watched the interview,” the BBC said in a statement read out during a later bulletin.

In preparing for reports about the anniversary of the disaster, BBC reporters visited what they thought was Dow’s website and contacted Jude Finisterra, who was listed there as a company spokesman, the BBC said.

“The person did not represent the company and we want to make it clear that the information he gave was entirely inaccurate,” it said.

Mr Finisterra later told BBC Radio 4 he was part of the group Yes Men, which hoaxes businesses and governments.

In Bhopal yesterday, about 1,500 demonstrators demanded justice for those still suffering the effects of the world’s worst industrial disaster.