The Night of the Explosion

In this second post, I thought that I would give a little history of the incident itself that has lead to the current situation in Bhopal. Many people to whom I have given a talk have asked more about that and those who have read my book have said they would like to have more about it as either they are too young to remember, have forgotten or simply have not heard of it before. So here is a brief summary of what happened.

It was 1984, that a factory owned by the Union Carbide Corporation and located in the middle of slum and semi-slum homes in northern Bhopal spewed out a highly toxic gas methylisocyanate (MIC). A tank containing up to 40 tonnes of the gas experienced an “exothermic reaction” and about 30 tonnes of this highly toxic gas was released.

An explosion of this type would, itself, create additional toxic compounds, such as phosgene, carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide.

The Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) was a major American international company and had been operating the chemical factory in Bhopal for many years as Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL). Legally, the plant and company was partly owned by the Indian Government as this was part of the agreement that allowed UCC to operate in India. But all the command and management were solely UCC – the government was in effect a sleeping partner.

Leading up to the explosion, according to local reports, there had been cutbacks of staff and training as well as use of less qualified or untrained staff in critical areas. The safety systems were turned off to save money or for maintenance and even so they were under-designed and so inadequate even had they been working. There was no disaster training or evacuation plan.

(Compare this to the sister plant in the USA with its computerised safety systems designed for total containment and a full evacuation plan for the entire population of the town, despite the USA plant being older.)

(copied from www.bhopalmarathon.org)

 A team from the Delhi Science Forum was the first organisation to produce a report on the explosion in which it said that there was “little doubt that (UCC) had installed obsolete and unreliable safety systems.” It also commented on the economic measures that were responsible for the depletion of trained and experienced personnel.

A vigilant local journalist, Rajkumar Keswani, speaking with concerned staff, had written several articles and forecast the ‘death of Bhopal’ by a gas leak from the factory. One worker had been killed in a leak of phosgene.

(It is worth noting that the storage limits for MIC in Europe is half a tonne. In Bhopal there were tanks storing 67 tonnes and the exploding one alone may have contained up to 40 tonnes. Industry standards recommend that it is not stored unless absolutely necessary.)

At the time, the population of Bhopal was about 900,000 and research studies by the Indian Council of Medical Research reported that some 600,000 were affected by the explosion to varying degrees. The Official government estimate of deaths on the night were 2,500 but local figures make it more like 15,000. 8,000 shrouds were sold by the shops before the stock ran out. Another estimated 20,000 have since died from injuries or sickness sustained at the time – and continue to die.

Families were devastated. Parents lost children and children lost parents. In the mayhem of thousands trying to escape the gas many people died, falling down dead in the streets. Families were separated, many never to be rejoined. And, of course, many families lost their income so the lives of thousands were further affected by poverty. Many now had no wage earner and even where there was still one, many jobs were lost overnight. With no redundancy or compensation.

In the days immediately following, many people from all over India travelled to Bhopal to help. Clearing up, burying bodies and helping families search for the missing. Some organisations also sent teams to help. Among the Individuals was a young PhD student, Sathyu Sarangi who was eventually to create the Sambhavna Trust Clinic (more in a later blog).

And let’s not forget the affects on the animals and plant life. Dogs and cattle also died horrible deaths, as well as wildlife.