Days after the disaster, the media went about the grim task of documenting the tragedy. One of the most riveting images that got the attention of the world was a stark black and white picture of a child who was about to be buried. And who was the photographer?
This is the story.
The photographers, Pablo Bartholomew and Raghu Rai, rushed to Bhopal on hearing the news of the disaster. Says Rai, “There was a high possibility of journalists and photographers being physically affected by the chemical contamination. But then, there is always an element of risk in any assignment.” Rai and Bartholomew soon came across a man burying a child. Rai said, “So many bodies were being buried, and this child I photographed, I must have taken six, eight frames, and they were about to pour mud on it ... I didn’t want the moment to be covered up and buried away because, for me, this expression was so moving and so powerful to tell the whole story of the tragedy.”
The two photographers did not ask the identity of the man burying his daughter and no one has claimed to be her relative. Her identity remains unknown. In fact it is this picture, titled “Burial of an Unknown Child,” which quickly became the face of the tragedy. Rai has completed a documentary project on the chemical disaster and how it has affected its victims. The book is called “Exposure: A Corporate Crime” and exhibitions using its images have gone around Europe, America, India and Southeast Asia. Rai’s aim was to get the exhibition to support the many survivors of Bhopal.
