Back in 1980’s Bhopal was a city of nearly a million people in India's Madhya Pradesh region. The Union Carbide pesticide plant was located in Jai Prakash Nagar, a particularly poor area of the impoverished city. On Sunday, December 2, 1984, hundred workers on the late shift were in the process of making the pesticide Sevin. This involved mixing carbon tetrachloride, methyl isocyanate (MIC) and alpha-napthol. Over the next 12 hours, a series of astonishing errors led to the massive disaster known as the Bhopal Gas Tragedy.
The MIC at the plant was stored in three partially buried 15,000-gallon tanks. When there was a problem with one of the tanks, nitrogen was forced in to extract the MIC. However, on this day, the process was not working correctly and both MIC and nitrogen were leaking. At about 11:00 p.m., the gauges began to indicate a dangerous level of pressure in the tanks, but the workers thought the instruments were malfunctioning and took no measures to alleviate the problem. By 11:30, the workers in the vicinity of the tanks were having a physical reaction to the leak, a feeling that many were familiar with because it happened with some frequency. Even then, Shakil Qureshi, the supervisor, decided to wait until after a tea break to look into the situation. By then, it was too late and panic ensued as an explosion rocked the plant at approximately 12:15 a.m.
Firefighters attempted in vain to use a curtain of water to stop the gas from escaping the plant. The gas simply flowed over the top of the water. A piece of equipment called a vent gas scrubber, intended to prevent toxic gas from spreading, completely failed to operate. In the midst of the chaos, the drivers of the emergency buses ran away instead of driving the workers to safety. Even worse, the plant failed to inform local authorities immediately, later claiming that the phones weren't working.
In those apocalyptic moments no one knew what was happening. People simply started dying in the most hideous ways. Many were crushed in the stampedes through narrow streets where street lamps burned a dim brown through clouds of gas. More than half a million people were exposed to Carbide’s poison gases. When dawn broke over the city, thousands of bodies lay in heaps in the streets. The army dumped hundreds of bodies in the surrounding forests and the Betwa River was so choked with corpses that they formed log-jams against the arches of bridges. Families and entire communities were wiped out, leaving no one to identify them. An immediate aftermath of the Bhopal disaster was its widespread economic fall out with loss of revenue, dislocation and the incapacity of a section of people to earn wages in exchange for labour. A single night snatched away people’s ability to work and earn a living that left them on the brink of economic destitution.
The immediate cause of death was due to choking, circulatory collapse and pulmonary edema (filling up of fluid in the lungs). Further post mortem reports revealed that people died not only of suffocation but also because the toxins had caused swelling in the brain, leading to disorientation and finally death, due to collapse of the nervous system. Other conditions include degeneration of the liver, and kidneys and rotting of the intestines. The still birth rate was 300% and neonatal mortality (death as an infant) was about 200% right after the tragedy. With recent news that third generation children of survivors are still showing debilitating deformities, and the funds meant to rehabilitate the victims are warming some politicians’ pockets, It is appalling that the Indian judicial system has not taken enough action against the culprits.
Most effects caused by the gas tragedy in Bhopal affected people's health and well being, but the disaster also indirectly upset the economic balance of the whole area. Because of damaged health, most inhabitants of Bhopal are completely incapable of working for any decent amount of money. Over 70% of the exposed population was people earning subsistence wages. An estimated 50,000 are in need of alternative jobs because they can no longer do the physically demanding work that they did before. Less than 100 people affected by the gas have found regular employment under govt. economic rehabilitation schemes. Unable to carry on with physically demanding jobs, families have become economically devastated.
The MIC at the plant was stored in three partially buried 15,000-gallon tanks. When there was a problem with one of the tanks, nitrogen was forced in to extract the MIC. However, on this day, the process was not working correctly and both MIC and nitrogen were leaking. At about 11:00 p.m., the gauges began to indicate a dangerous level of pressure in the tanks, but the workers thought the instruments were malfunctioning and took no measures to alleviate the problem. By 11:30, the workers in the vicinity of the tanks were having a physical reaction to the leak, a feeling that many were familiar with because it happened with some frequency. Even then, Shakil Qureshi, the supervisor, decided to wait until after a tea break to look into the situation. By then, it was too late and panic ensued as an explosion rocked the plant at approximately 12:15 a.m.
Firefighters attempted in vain to use a curtain of water to stop the gas from escaping the plant. The gas simply flowed over the top of the water. A piece of equipment called a vent gas scrubber, intended to prevent toxic gas from spreading, completely failed to operate. In the midst of the chaos, the drivers of the emergency buses ran away instead of driving the workers to safety. Even worse, the plant failed to inform local authorities immediately, later claiming that the phones weren't working.
In those apocalyptic moments no one knew what was happening. People simply started dying in the most hideous ways. Many were crushed in the stampedes through narrow streets where street lamps burned a dim brown through clouds of gas. More than half a million people were exposed to Carbide’s poison gases. When dawn broke over the city, thousands of bodies lay in heaps in the streets. The army dumped hundreds of bodies in the surrounding forests and the Betwa River was so choked with corpses that they formed log-jams against the arches of bridges. Families and entire communities were wiped out, leaving no one to identify them. An immediate aftermath of the Bhopal disaster was its widespread economic fall out with loss of revenue, dislocation and the incapacity of a section of people to earn wages in exchange for labour. A single night snatched away people’s ability to work and earn a living that left them on the brink of economic destitution.
The immediate cause of death was due to choking, circulatory collapse and pulmonary edema (filling up of fluid in the lungs). Further post mortem reports revealed that people died not only of suffocation but also because the toxins had caused swelling in the brain, leading to disorientation and finally death, due to collapse of the nervous system. Other conditions include degeneration of the liver, and kidneys and rotting of the intestines. The still birth rate was 300% and neonatal mortality (death as an infant) was about 200% right after the tragedy. With recent news that third generation children of survivors are still showing debilitating deformities, and the funds meant to rehabilitate the victims are warming some politicians’ pockets, It is appalling that the Indian judicial system has not taken enough action against the culprits.
Most effects caused by the gas tragedy in Bhopal affected people's health and well being, but the disaster also indirectly upset the economic balance of the whole area. Because of damaged health, most inhabitants of Bhopal are completely incapable of working for any decent amount of money. Over 70% of the exposed population was people earning subsistence wages. An estimated 50,000 are in need of alternative jobs because they can no longer do the physically demanding work that they did before. Less than 100 people affected by the gas have found regular employment under govt. economic rehabilitation schemes. Unable to carry on with physically demanding jobs, families have become economically devastated.