Just a few days ago was the 18th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster. 8000 people died in the immediate aftermath of the gas leak at the Union Carbide factory. Another 20,000 have died since of related injuries.

But the owner of Union Carbide and the abandoned factory site that is still polluting the community seems to get a bit nervous when confronted with the facts.

A cool parody website attempting to give people an honest look at Dow and the reasons why the company has not cleaned up Bhopal seems to have been shut down (http:www.dow-chemical.com). The site was so slick it took me a few minutes to realise it was a hoax, guess it was a little to close to the truth for comfort.

The site explained why Dow (and Union Carbide) have always refused to take responsibility for the disaster, and have never seen fit to offer any more than $500 compensation per victim.

The Yes Men say that the server, Verio, received a DMCA notice and the entire Thing.net network was shut down including activist, artist, and other websites and bulletin boards late Wednesday night.

You can find out more from the Yes Men at http://www.theyesmen.org/dow-chemical/.

Or read a Indian journalist's first hand account of the Bhopal disaster.

Just discovered Google still has some pages of the spoof cached.