Bhopal Chemical Accident

After the accident the plant was closed down, many workers lost their jobs. While the plant was running, workers went on many strikes because they weren’t getting paid enough. Also, the workers weren’t properly equipped, with proper clothing, mask etc, and educated, their manuals were in English and some couldn’t understand it. This made more skilled workers leave the plant, leaving it with inexperienced workers. There were many warnings before the accident that affected workers; an example is, a worker died on December 25th 1981 because there was a phosgene leak. When the MIC release was first detected, three hours later, the workers unions printed out posters to warn the community, they said things like “Lives of thousands of workers and citizens in danger because of poisonous gas.” The workers were eventually evacuated, but they faced many of the same problems the locals did as well.

The local people of Bhopal were affected greatly due to the gas release. People were waking up with burning sensations in their lungs and began to panic and tried to run away from the plant. People who were running inhaled more gas and so did children and shorter people. People were running in all directions and started falling one by one and being trampled on. People were also vomiting, coughing, suffocating and experiencing eye irritations, which were getting worse as time went by. It was estimated around three-thousand-eight- hundred people died on the night of the accident. Many more died a few days after, and survivors were left with permanent injuries. Even today the people of Bhopal are being affected, the gas leak had poisoned water supplies and some babies are being born malformed.

The organizations that are directly responsible for taking care of the workers and community’s safety are the Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) and the International Medical Commission on Bhopal (IMCB). The UCC actions were the reason why the accident was so bad. They disabled safety equipment, didn’t properly train and equip the plant’s workers and kept stores of MIC at dangerously high levels. The alarm to alert the community was also switched off, so there was no time for evacuation as soon as the leak occurred. IMCB helped the survivors of Bhopal by providing them with proper care, keeping them safe and did a lot of other things as well.

The organisation that did the original investigation of the accident was the government agencies- Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). While it was thought the water came in through a leakage, the CBI tested this hypothesis and said it was negative. The route of water to the tank was not possible, ideas of disgruntled worker directly introducing water into the tank was discussed after finding this out. This couldn’t be confirmed because the investigation team found no connections due to any evidence. Some information that failed to be given out by the CSIR was when the water route was tested and that while testing; the water didn’t even rise to the first valve, due to insufficient pressure. This would mean their test was unreliable so it is unclear what exactly caused the accident.

The Bhopal chemical accident is considered the worst industrial accident that ever happened. The accident shows how uncontrolled chemical accidents can be very dangerous and can cause a lot of deaths or permanent injuries. The best way to prevent them is to make sure people know how dangerous a chemical is and how it should be handled. Another way would be to make sure plants using chemicals have probably educated and equipped workers and all the right safety equipment and procedures. While it wasn’t exactly clear how the MIC plant accident occurred, it would have been a lot less damaging if these rules were applied.

Bibliography

“Bhopal disaster” (2009) [on-line] Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster

“Bhopal- Rate of Reaction” (2007) [on-line] Available: http://pulse.pharmacy.arizona.edu/11th_grade/industrialization/chemistry/rate_of_reaction.html

“International Medical Commission on Bhopal” (2009) Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Medical_Commission_on_Bhopal

“The Bhopal Plant” (2008) [on-line] Available:

http://www.bhopal.com/plant.htm

“What Happened?” (2008) [on-line] Available: http://www.studentsforbhopal.org/WhatHappened.htm