Union Carbide Disaster: Bhopal, India

Union Carbide Disaster: Bhopal, India On December 3, 1984 just three miles from the City of Bhopal.. An American owned Union Carbide Pesticide Plant leaked Toxic gas in to the air killing over Hundreds of people right away. Mr. Y P Gokhale, managing director of Union Carbide in India said, “That a Methyl isocyanate gas (MIC) had escaped when a valve in the plant’s underground storage tank broke under pressure. The leak was caused by a series of mechanical and human errors in the pesticide producing plant.

For a full hour the plant’s personnel and safety equipment failed to detect the massive leak, and when the alarm was sound most of the harm was already done. What was worse was that local health officials had not been educated on the toxicity of the chemicals used at the Union Carbide plant therefore there were no emergency procedures in place to protect the people of Bhopal. Panic broke out in the city of Bhopal and the areas surrounding more then tens of thousands of people attempted to escape. More then 20,000 people required hospital symptoms including swollen eyes, frothing at the mouth and breathing difficulties.

There we thousands of dead animals just covering the streets of Bhopal. The Indian government sued Union Carbide in a civil case and settled in 1989 for 470 million dollars. The Union Carbide which shut down its Bhopal plant after the disaster has yet to clean up the site completely. More then thousands of people died instantly and over 2,000 people died during the aftermath. In 1999 a voluntary group in Bhopal which believed not enough had been done to help the victims, filed a lawsuite in the United States claiming that Union Carbide violated international law and human rights.

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In November of 2000 Warren Anderson was charged of “Culpable homicide” for cost cutting at the plant which is alleged to have compromised safety Standards. In 2004 the Indian Supreme Court approved a compensation plan drawn up to help more the 570,000 Victims of the disaster. The welfare commission paid well over 350 million dollars. The Bhopal disaster in 1984 was one of the worst industrial accidents in history. However after 3 decades later toxic waste is still being stored on the site under poor conditions.

Today the people in Bhopal still live with the consequences of the gas cloud and are still fighting for compensation. Almost 28 years after the accident, a group of cabinet ministers in New Delhi decided to sign over the disposal of the toxic waste from Bhopal to the German technicians. The old factory in Bhopal with its rusty tanks and dilapidated clusters of buildings, is like a ghost factory. People in the area of Bhopal are still dying from the toxic gas leak more then 300,000 have died from it over the years and more are expected to die as well.

This was one of the deadliest Toxic gas leaks in the world I can’t believe that this happen. And what hurts the most is that it took them over 28 years to finally take care of the matter and I doubt its all just quiet yet as they are hitting the 29th year since the gas leak. Germany was nice to move in and help them out by taking this stuff and getting rid of it for them. I on the other hand think something should have been done about it many of years ago. On the 20th anniversary of the Mascara a man claim to have said that the Company Dow was going to pick up the waste and get rid of it.

When the news people called to ask the man question there was no one by that name that had worked for them and that the guy was an imposter that they had no intention to pick up the waste. Work Cited 1. http://www. spiegel. de/international/world/germany-plans-to-dispose-of-bhopal-toxic-waste-a-840791. html 2. http://topics. nytimes. com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/india/bhopal/index. html 3. http://www. history. com/this-day-in-history/the-bhopal-union-carbide-disaster 4. http://news. bbc. co. uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/3/newsid_2698000/2698709. stm

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