Bhopal Disaster in India - Case Study Example

Bhopal Disaster in India Introduction On 3 December of the year 1984, approximately forty-five tons of methyl isocyanate (MIC), a very dangerous gas, leaked from an insecticide factory in Bhopal city, Madhya Pradesh state of India. The insecticide plant belonged to the Indian subsidiary of Union Carbide Corporation, an American firm that mined asbestos there from 1963 to 1985. During the night of 2 December 1984 (11:00 PM), as the greatest percentage of the one million Bhopal city’s inhabitants slept, a plant operator identified a small leak of methyl isocyanate gas and growing pressure in a tank the was used for storage. The security device designer known as the vent-gas scrubber used for neutralizing toxic emissions from the MIC system had been switched off three weeks earlier (Curley, 2010). Apparently, a defective regulator had permitted the mixing of one ton of water used to clean internal pipes to with 40 tons of methyl isocyanate. The coolant of a thirty-ton refrigeration unit that generally functioned as a safety component for cooling the storage tank for methyl isocyanate had been removed for use in a different part of the factory. Heat and pressure from the strong exothermic effect in the tank went on mounting. For three months, the gas-flare safety system had not been working. At about 1:00 AM of 3 December 1984, a security valve gave way releasing a cloud of methyl isocyanate gas into the air with a deafening reverberation that resounded all over the factory. The dangerous gas drifted over neighborhoods that were thickly populated around the firm causing immediate premature deaths of thousands of people (no less than 3,800), in addition to causing panic as individuals made attempts to run away from the area. Within no time, Bhopal city’s streets were filled with the dead bodies of human beings as well as birds, dogs, cows, and buffaloes’ carcasses. Soon, local hospitals were full of injured persons and the unawareness of precisely the gas involved and its effects were further compounded this crisis (Fortun, 2001). A number of epidemiological studies carried out shortly following the industrial accident revealed that the rates of mortality and morbidity among the exposed population were high. Reports from the government of Madhya Pradesh state indicated that the catastrophe took an instantaneous toll of three thousand lives, although estimates from the Indian Council of medical Research indicated that the first seventy-two hours saw the death of ten thousand individuals. During the ensuing quarter-century, fifteen thousand to twenty-five thousand people are said to have passed away owing to the effects of the poisoning. About half a million survivors have suffered from such illnesses as blindness, eye irritation, respiratory problems, among others because of toxic gas exposure. The ultimate death toll may however never be known (Curley, 2010). Later scrutiny disclosed that the catastrophe resulted from substandard safety and operating procedures at the plant, which was understaffed. People brought damage charges against the plant and as a way of ascertaining that claims emanating from the spill disaster would be dealt with fairly and quickly, the Indian government, in March 1985, enacted the Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster Act, which made the government the lone representative of the spill sufferers in legal proceedings both within India and outside. Ultimately, under the ruling of the presiding American judge, all cases were removed from the U.S. jurisdiction and placed utterly under Indian legal system much to the injured parties’ detriment. The Indian Supreme Court mediated a settlement and UCC accepted moral liability and agreed to pay the Indian government an amount of money amounting to 470 million dollars. This amount was to be distributed among the petitioners as a full and final settlement. The court concluded on this figure based on the disputed claim that only 102,000 suffered permanent disabilities and 3000 people died ((Kumar, 2004)). However, based on considerable underestimations of the number of individuals exposed as well as the long-term health effects of contact, this was a comparatively little amount. Fortun (2001) explains that soon after the spill disaster, Union Carbide Corporation started attempting to detach itself from liability for the gas leak. Its major tactic was to transfer liability to UCIL, claiming that the Indian subsidiary built and operated the plant wholly. It also made-up scenarios revolving around sabotage, which they linked to dissatisfied employees as well as formerly unknown Sikh extremist groups. However, numerous independent sources impugned this theory. American attorney filed the first multi-billion dollar lawsuit in a U.S. court on December 7, when the toxic plume had hardly cleared, marking the commencement of years of legal intrigues in which the ethical repercussion of the spill tragedy in addition to its affect on the people of Bhopal were greatly overlooked . Fortun (2001) further points out that upon announcing the compensation settlement of 470 million dollars, UCC shares rose by two dollars per share or by seven percent in value. Important to note is the fact that the liability would have exceeded ten billion dollars that UCC was worth and insured for in 1984 had compensation in Bhopal been paid at the same rate that the defendant including UCC was awarding asbestosis victims in US courts (Castleman, 1985). According to the Department of Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation, 554,895 people who suffered injuries and 15,310 survivors of those killed had received their compensation by the end of October 2003 (Kumar, 2004). UCC has had attempts to manipulate, conceal and hold back scientific data at every turn, all to the victims’ detriment – the company refrained from stating precisely what constituted the toxic cloud that enclosed the city of Bhopal on that December night (Dhara & Dhara, 2002). The truth is, upon MIC’s exposure to 200° heat, it yields degraded MIC, which contains hydrogen cyanide (HCN), a more deadly gas. Some victims’ cherry-red color of blood and viscera were characteristic of acute cyanide poisoning, which clearly evidences the fact that the temperature of the storage tank did reach this level in the disaster. Besides, majority of the victims responded well to sodium thiosulfate administration, an efficient therapy for cyanide poisoning but not exposure to MIC (Mangla, 1989). Although UCC recommended use of sodium thiosulfate at the outset, it later withdrew the statement, which prompts suggestions that it was attempting to conceal evidence of hydrogen cyanide in the gas leak. In effect, UCC strongly denied HCN presence making it a point of speculation among researchers (Dhara & Dhara, 2002 and Anderson, 1989). Worse still, following the disaster, UCC discontinued its operation at Bhopal plant but failed to clean up the industrial site utterly. For this reason, the plant unremittingly leaks several heavy metals as well as toxic chemicals that end up into local aquifers. Sadly, hazardously contaminated water has now become an addition to the legacy that UCC left for the populace of Bhopal (Fortun, 2001 and Chander, 2001). Twenty years following the chemical leakage, over four hundred tons of industrial waste still lay on the site. People attributed the contamination of water as well as soil was blamed for the high incidences of birth defects as well as chronic health problems among the people living around that region. In the year 2004, the Supreme Court of India directed the state to supply Bhopal residents with clean water for drinking since the area’s ground water was already contaminated (Curley, 2010). According to recent scientific surveys, to date, victims of this catastrophe still to have to put up with its impacts. In 1999, s Greenpeace report indicated that this incidence led to the contamination of the site where the factory was, the neighboring land as well as ground water. In some places, mercury levels were six million times higher than projected. Wells for drinking water close to the plant suffered heavy pollution with chemicals recognized to produce genetic defects and cancers. A study conducted in the year 2002 revealed that breast milk of nursing mothers contained mercury, lead as well as organochlorites (Veenema, 2007). Conclusion The Bhopal disaster was indeed one of the most horrible industrial accidents in history. It made the name Bhopal become synonymous with industrial disasters. It killed numerous people as well as animals and left numerous others injured. As mentioned earlier, victims of this disaster still to have to endure its impacts to this day. This disaster was and should be a watershed in the area of environmental legislation and policy, industrial catastrophe preparedness, company liability and prevention of accidents, as well as the regulation of toxicity and chemicals all over the globe. Governments around the world as well as international agencies should embrace the duty of focusing on vastly applicable procedures for communal responsibility and accident prevention both in the developing nations and in advanced industrial ones. Moreover, how and where any industry is sited as well as the way in which it deals with the dangers that it poses to the people around it should be real concerns. There is also need to provide people living around such plants with information and to include them as partakers in decision-making. There is dire need for all chemical industries to work to voluntarily come up with and execute firm environmental and safety standards to see to it that there is never a repeat of this kind of tragedy. References Anderson, N. (1989). Long-term Effects of Mthyl Isocyanate. Lancet, 2:1259. Castleman, B. P. P. (1985). Appendix: The Bhopal Disaster as a Case Study in Double Standards. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Chander, J. (2001). Water Contamination: A Legacy of the Union Carbide Disaster in Bhopal, India. International Journal of Occupational Environmental Health, 7:72–73. Curley, R. (2010). New Thinking about Pollution. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group. Dhara, V.R. and Dhara, R. (2002). The Union Carbide Disaster in Bhopal: A Review of Health Effects. Arch Environ Health, 57:391–404. Fortun, K. (2001). Advocacy after Bhopal. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Kumar, S. (2004). Victims of Gas Leak in Bhopal Seek Redress on Compensation. Bmj, 329:7462. Mangla, B. (1989). Long-term Effects of Methyl Isocyanate. Lancet, 2:103. Veenema, T. G. (2007). Disaster Nursing and Emergency Preparedness: For Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Terrorism and Other Hazards. New York: Springer Publishing Company. Read More