Bangladeshis take British scientists to court over arsenic in drinking water

By Robert Verkaik Legal Affairs Correspondent
Courtesy: The Independent [UK; August 12, 2002]

<http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=323650>

A group of Bangladeshis has begun legal proceedings at the High Court in London
against British scientists over allegations that they failed to prevent arsenic
poisoning of thousands of people.

In a writ lodged this week, the Bangladeshi villagers claim that the
British Geological Survey (BGS) was negligent in work it did in central and
eastern Bangladesh in 1992 to assess toxicity after aid programmes paid for
sinking new wells.

The claim form alleges that the agency did not test for arsenic, despite cases
of poisoning from wells in the neighbouring Indian state of West Bengal. As a
result, the villagers allege, five years passed before cases were first
diagnosed in Bangladesh.

In the lead case, Binod Sutradhar, 43, who lives in the village of Ramrail in
the country's Brahmanbaria region, claims he drank, on average, three litres of
groundwater a day from a tubewell contaminated with arsenic.

Mr Sutradhar has since been diagnosed with arsenicosis and has developed ulcers
and burns. Doctors say that he has become much more vulnerable to skin cancer
and other forms of cancer.

Levels of arsenic in the tubewell drinking water, when tested in December 2001,
were found to be much higher than recommended safety levels.

Mr Sutradhar, who has been awarded legal aid to bring his action in
Britain, is claiming for a loss in his earning capacity as a carpenter, because
he is only able to work two days per week. His solicitor Martyn Day, of the
solicitors Leigh Day & Co, said yesterday: "Thousands of Bangladeshis have
suffered the most serious injuries as a result of the arsenic contamination. On
the face of it, a significant amount of that suffering could have been avoided
if the BGS had tested for arsenic back in 1992."

Mr Day said their case was that the BGS could and should have undertaken that
test: "If this is right, they should be made to pay, just as they would be made
to pay if the same thing had happened in this country," he said.

Arsenic occurs naturally beneath much of Bangladesh. It is thought to be present
at dangerous levels in the water from up to five million wells sunk across the
country in the past 25 years.

A spokeswoman for the Natural Environment Research Council, which
represents the BGS, said it was aware that Leigh Day & Co was preparing legal
proceedings. She said: "We will be defending the action and do not believe we
have any liability in this case."

Over the centuries, Bangla-deshis have relied upon the multitudinous rivers and
streams that abound over the country's very flat land for water, much of which
lies beneath sea level. Unfortunately, the water supply has also been the route
for the country's sewage system and the confluence of the two has brought about
untold levels of death and disease through cholera.

Unicef, the UN's children's fund, funded the sinking of about a million bore
holes in the country to tap into the groundwater, which it believed would not be
contaminated.