Bhopal Gas Tragedy.docx

Introduction The Bhopal disaster, also referred to as the Bhopal Gas Tragedy was a gas leak incident in India, considered the world’s largest disaster. In the early morning hours of December 3, 1984 a poisonous grey cloud (forty tons of toxic gases) from Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL’s) pesticide plant at Bhopal spread throughout the city. Water carrying catalytic material had entered Methyl Isocyanate (MIC). The killer gas spread through the city, sending residents scurrying through the dark streets. No alarm ever sounded a warning & no evacuation plan was prepared. When victims arrived at the hospital breathless & blind, doctors did not know how to treat them, as UCIL had not provided emergency information. It was only when the sun rose the next morning that the magnitude of the devastation was clear. Dead bodies of human & animals blocked the streets, leaves turned black, the smell of burning chilli peppers lingered in the air. Estimate suggested that as many as 10,000 may have died immediately & 30,000 to 50,000 were too ill to ever return to their jobs. The catastrophe raised some serious ethical issues. The pesticide factory was built in the midst of densely populated settlements. UCIL choose to store & produce MIC, one of the deadliest chemicals (permitted exposure levels in USA & Britain are 1,20,000 people lived. The MIC plant was not designed to handle a runway reaction. When the uncontrolled reaction started (meant to neutralize MIC emissions) at more than 200 times its designed capacity. MIC in the tank was filled to 87% of its capacity while the maximum permissible was 50%. MIC was not stored at zero degree centigrade as prescribed & the refrigeration & cooling systems had been shut down five months before the disaster, as part of UCC’s global economy drive. Vital gauges & indicators in the MIC tank were defective. The flare tower, meant to burn off MIC emissions, was under repair at the time of the disaster & the scrubber contained no caustic soda. As a part of UCC’s drive to cut costs, the work force in the Bhopal factory was brought down by the half from 1980 to 1984. This had serious consequences on the safety & maintenance. The size of the work crew from the MIC plant was cut in half from twelve to six workers. The maintenance supervisor position had been eliminated & there was no maintenance supervisor. The period of safety training to workers in the MIC plant was brought down from 6 months to 15 days.

CAUSES After the gas release, UCC launched an aggressive effort to identify the cause. An initial investigation by UCC showed that the large volume of water had been introduced into the MIC tank. This caused a chemical reaction that forced the pressure release valve to open & allowed the gas to leak. A committee of experts working on behalf of the Indian government conducted its own investigation & reached the same conclusion. Some two & a half years after the tragedy, & only after the Indian government’s reluctant release of some 70,000 pages of documentation, UCC filed a lengthy court document in India detailing the findings of its scientific & legal investigation, the causes of the disaster was undeniable sabotage. UCC’s investigation proved with virtual certainty that the disaster was caused by the direct entry of water into tank 610 through a hose connected to the tank. Investigation suggest that only an employee with the appropriate skills & knowledge of the site could have tampered with the tank.

ACTION TAKEN The company stresses the immediate action taken after the disaster & its continued commitment to helping the victims. On 4 December, the day following the leak, Union Carbide sent material aid & several international medical facilities in Bhopal. The primary financial restriction paid by UCC was negotiated in 1989, when the Indian Supreme Court approved the settlement of US$ 470 million (rs. 1055 crore). This amount was immediately paid by UCC to the Indian government. In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, Union Carbide states on its websites that it put $2 million into the Indian prime minister’s immediate disaster relief fund on 11 December 1984. The corporation established the employee’s Bhopal relief fund in February 1985, which raised more than $5 million for immediate relief. According to Union Carbide, in August 1087, they made an additional $4.6 million in humanitarian interim relief available. Union Carbide also stated that it undertook several steps to provide continuing aid to the victims of the Bhopal disaster. UCC provided $2.2 million to Arizona state University to establish vocational technical centre in Bhopal, which was opened, but was later closed by the state government.

INJURY CAUSED The official immediate death toll was 2,259. The government of Madhya Pradesh confirmed a total of 3,787 deaths related to gas release. A government affidavit in 2006 stated that the leak caused 5,58,125 injuries, & including 338,478 temporary partial injuries & approximately 3,900 severely & permanently disabling injuries. Others estimate that 8,000 died within two weeks, & another 8,000 or more have since died from the gas-related disease.

DISASTER The plant in Bhopal where the disaster happened started to produce ‘Carbaryl’ in 1977. Carbaryl is mainly used as an insecticide. At first, the production was 2,500 tonnes per year. There was no problem, as the plant had been designed for an output of 5,000 tonnes. At the beginning of the 1980s, Carbaryl did not sell very well. For this reason, the owners of the frequently & using parts that were made of lower-grade steel. Closing the plant was being considered as well. When the disaster happened, there was no production at the plant because there was a surplus on the market. The disaster happened because water entered a tank containing Methyl isocynate. This caused a chemical reaction which resulted in the build-up of much carbon dioxide, among other things. The resulting reaction increased the temperature inside the tank to reach over 200 °C (392 °F). the pressure was more than the tank was built to withstand. The tank had valves to control the pressure. These were triggered in an emergency, which reduced the pressure. As a result, large amounts of toxic gases were released into the environment. The pipes were rusty. The rust in the iron pipes made the reaction faster. Al the contents of the tank were released within a period of about two hours. The water had entered the tank because of sequence of events. The tank had been maintained badly. When cleaning work was done, water entered the tank. In October 1984, one the tank lost the ability to hold most of its nitrogen gas pressure. It meant that liquid MIC contained within could not be pumped out. At the time of this failure, that tank contained 42 tons of liquid MIC. Shortly after this failure, MIC production was halted at the Bhopal facility, & part of the plant was shut down for the maintenance.

ETHICS & GOVERNANCE In the evening of December, 2nd the periodic washing operations proceeded at around 9:30 pm despite the failure to insert a slip blind into the pipes to ensure that water did not back up into storage tanks & the fact one or two of bleeder valves at the bottom of the discharge pipes were blocked. The worker doing the washing noticed this, & stopped the washing to report the problem. However, his immediate supervisor, told him to continued till after the third shift which comes on at round 10:45pm. Water then began to flow into the tank & mix with the stored MIC through a normally-open pressurization valve & then through a partly –open isolation valve that should have closed after the last draw of MIC. This resulted with a highly volatile & exothermic reaction which was possible catalysed by the ferrous corrosion of the tank lining. Approximately 12:40am the next day, the tank ruptured & within an hour 40 tons of vapour was discharged. In relation with this, it was highly unethical for the worker’s immediate supervisor to instruct the worker to continue despite knowing the malfunctions discovered. It was also unethical for the worker to report to the wrong superior. However, he still could not be blamed as there were no proper edu7cational courses for response protocol or code of conduct conducted for the workers in the plant. The supervisor should have adhered to the standard or general safety protocols & evaluated the risks upon findings out about the malfunction. He should have made proper judgement based on proper moral principles before making that decision. If he would have made the right ethical call & the periodic washing was put to halt, the whole disaster would have been avoided. Furthermore, after the disaster breakdown, the director of UCIL packed up his belongings & moved back to America, denying the breakdown at the factory was related to him or his company. He stated that the breakdown was caused by the human errors which came from the workers at the factory & not the management nor the top personnel. The action of the chairperson of UCC abandoning the tragedy & put the blame on the low-class workers is professionally unethical. They took advantage of the illiterate & uneducated workers of the factory to run away from the blame. As a result, the government of India fined the UCC in united states for all the loss of lives related to the factory breakdown with the amount of $470million, & distributed to the family of deceased.

Conclusion The Bhopal disaster had created an undeniable massive impact on the world’s view in these matters. Ever since the incident occurred, the citizens all over the world especially in developed nations like America, Europe, Japan & Australia have been more aware of the safety precautions practiced in the factories that manufacture chemical or hazardous substances. They started to acknowledge the importance of education especially in safety matters. Important lessons learnt from Bhopal incident would be that professional ethics, responsibility for safety & risk assessment are the most important aspects mentioned will lead to a disastrous to the factory, economy, environment & the civilization. We strongly believe that more ordinances & acts should be implemented by the world government to ensure the safety of the people. Aside from having strategic & constructive plans, ordinances & acts, they should put more efforts in enforcing the law to ensure the absence of corruption in the enforcement bodies. Speaking of this, the government in India did have the constitutional law about setting up chemical factories which are hazardous to the environment & the local civilization, but due to the existence of corruption in the government at that time, things didn’t turn out as planned.

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