What Was Dumped into the Bay of Bengal?
The data below (like much of the data in the interactive map from James Martin Center) is taken from a 2001 US Army Research report, “Off-Shore Disposal of Chemical Agents and Weapons Conducted by the United States.” Additional information is available from a 2007 Congressional Research Service Report, “US Disposal of Chemical Weapons in the Ocean: Background and Issues for Congress.”
Note that many chemical agents (including mustard “gas”) are stored as liquids or solids, then converted to aerosols when the bomb explodes. Some (including mustard agent) become solids at temperatures significantly above the freezing point of water. Click on the bomb type or agent in the list below for more details.
9,193 M47 100-pound mustard bombs
16,000 M47A2 100-pound mustard bombs
40,629 M70 115-pound mustard bombs
2,406 M78 500-pound phosgene bombs
2,512 M79 1000-pound cyanogen chloride bombs
8,742 M79 1000-pound phosgene bombs
1,180 55-gallon drums of mustard agent
883 one-ton containers of lewisite
2,672 one-ton containers of mustard agent
An unknown number of 33-gallon (British Imperial) drums of mustard agent