Bhopal Gas Tragedy: An Industrial Catastrophe as a Result of Corporate Negligence and Governmental Apathy
By Sayoni Ghosh, MA English Literature
If you thought that the use of gas chambers stopped after the Second World War, you were wrong. Even after almost half a century, on the night of 2nd December 1984, citizens of Bhopal in the heart of India, who were residing near the pesticide plant of Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL), unknowingly inhaled Methyl isocyanate (MIC), a highly toxic chemical for which there is no known antidote till date. Overnight, Bhopal turned into a fatal gas chamber for its more than 500,000 residents, and we can still see the after-effects to date.
UCIL was 50.9% owned by Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation (UCC) and 49.1% owned by Indian investors. UCIL built MIC units which are required for the production of pesticides in their Bhopal plant, despite facing opposition since the unit was nearby a heavily populated area. Safety precautions were constantly violated and even those working there were not even qualified when they were hired and who were given insufficient training. The machinery, pipes and valves which held the poisonous chemical were not maintained well. Warren Anderson was the chair and CEO of the UCC at the time the disaster took place. Corporate culture from the UCIL led to perishing facilities and malfunctioning instrumentation at the plant, indifference towards safety and an undertrained workforce. The site was a ticking time bomb.
Rajkumar Keswani, one of the first journalists to report on the inadequate safety standards of the plant, had made several pleas of warning of an impending gas leak that would affect the city. His articles started appearing in 1982, two years before the catastrophe took place. Even after writing four articles for local publications, titled: Save Please, Save This City, Bhopal Sitting on the Brink of a Volcano, If you don’t understand, you all shall be wiped out, and Bhopal: On the Brink of a Disaster and Carbide’s auditors warning of a possible ‘runaway reaction’ in 1982. All cries were unheeded.
On the fateful night of 2nd December 1984, while attempting to unclog a water piper, water penetrated the MIC tank units, and an exothermic chemical reaction took place, and due to an instantaneous pressure change, 30 tonnes of MIC escaped into the atmosphere within one hour. All technological systems and safety machinery which should have been responsible for preventing the leak were either deactivated or malfunctioning. Gauges gave faulty readings because of poor maintenance and could not properly warn of any trouble, there was no nitrogen layer in the tank to keep water out because of a leaky valve, and the vent gas scrubber was not only on standby and was also too small to handle a massive leak.
This was how the American dream to make pesticides for crops to help feed millions of hungry mouths led to the world’s most devastating artificial industrial disaster, a nightmare for independent India.
Over 8,000 people died from gas inhalation within 24 hours. The ones who started showing symptoms invaded the Hamidia Hospital, the only main healthcare centre in Bhopal at the time. But due to miscommunication, untimely exchange, lack of information and failure of available antidote for MIC exposure, the hospital’s limited emergency response could not limit the death toll, as thousands died by the following morning. Up to 10,000 bodies were counted in the first 72 hours. Ingrid Eckerman, in her book, The Bhopal Saga, states, ‘The patients that invaded Hamidia hospital had spasms and convulsions. They gasped for breath, and the nostrils were quivering, the lips cyanotic. The acute symptoms can be described as burning in the respiratory tract and eyes, breathlessness, stomach pains and vomiting.’
Around 150,000 survivors remain chronically ill. They still grapple with the long-term effects on their mental and physical health, like breathlessness, coughing, chest pains, fatigue, body aches, abdominal pain, anxiety attacks, bad memory, concentration difficulties, irritability, headache and PTSD.
Who is to blame for the disaster? We have seen that UCC had made fatal errors. But, the Indian state, owing almost half the shares of UCIL, is also to blame because, following the immediate aftermath of the disaster, they failed to make the necessary data public, contributing to further confusion, especially amongst emergency services. Warren Anderson was placed under house arrest and urged by the government to leave the country within 24 hours.
Anderson and the UCC refused to answer homicide charges and remained fugitives from India’s courts. They maintained the claim that MIC was ‘nothing more than a potent tear gas.’ They also insisted that the accident was an act of sabotage by a rogue worker. The US denied all extradition requests from India. Seven Indian employees of Union Carbide were convicted of criminal negligence in 2010.
Legal proceedings that involved the two counties, Bhopal authorities and the victims led to an out-of-court settlement of $470 million, paid by Union Carbide. It paid $2,000 per corpse. Dow Chemical acquired Union Carbide in 2001 and has refused any liability to date. UCC never apologised, and the plant site has not yet been cleaned up. It remains a dirty scar, a reminder of this disaster.
Even after more than thirty years, we witnessed the unpreparedness of the healthcare system during the outbreak of the global pandemic, which indicates that humanity still has miles to go when it comes to strengthening the frontline for such catastrophes.
Witnessing such unfortunate incidents, we are forced to ask the question; does it always come down to money instead of lives? Ironically, the plant that initially looked like a massive investment for UCC turned out to be its worst liability.
S. Ravi Rajan, in his excerpt titled, Bhopal Vulnerability, Routinization and Chronic Disaster, perfectly summates how we, as a society, look back on this tragedy: ‘This unrelenting social suffering has, however, largely receded from public attention. Barring the ritualistic reports datelined Bhopal in the first week of December every year, the potent malignancy of the chronic disaster is ignored by almost everyone but the survivors. The remembered Bhopal disaster is the gas leak from a pesticide factory run by a multinational company, not the day-to-day misery of half a million survivors. A state of affairs that should seem distastefully pathological, therefore, somehow appears normal, routine, and for the most part invisible.’