The disasterOn the night of December 2nd-3rd 1984, 40 tons of methyl isocyanate, hydrogen cyanide, mono-methyl amine and other lethal gases began spewing from Union Carbide Corporation’s pesticide factory in Bhopal, India. Nobody outside the factory was warned because the safety siren was turned off. Not until the gas was upon them in their beds, searing their eyes, filling their mouths and lungs, did the communities of Bhopal know of their danger.
Gasping for breath and near blind people stampeded into narrow alleys. In the mayhem children were torn from the hands of their mothers, never to see them again. Those who still could were screaming. Some were wracked with seizures and fell under trampling feet. Some, stumbling in a sea of gas, their lungs on fire, were drowned in their own bodily fluids. It was a massacre. Dawn broke over residential streets littered with corpses. In just a few hours numberless innocents had died in fierce pain and unimaginable terror.
Over half a million people were exposed to the deadly cocktail. The gases burned the tissues of the eyes and lungs, crossed into the bloodstream and damaged almost every system in the body. Nobody knows how many died but in the next days more than 7,000 death shrouds were sold in Bhopal. With an estimated 10-15 people continuing to die each month the number of deaths to date is put at close to 20,000. And today more than 120,000 people are still in need of urgent medical attention.
How could it happen?The immediate causes of the disaster are related to a cost-cutting drive initiated by Union Carbide Corporation. The moves directed at enhancing profits included reducing the number of personnel; lowering minimal training for operatives from 6 months to 15 days; use of low quality construction material and day labour; cutting down on vital safety measures and the adoption of hazardous operating procedures.
In 1981 a plant operator was killed by a phosgene gas leak. A further phosgene leak in January 1982 severely injured 28 workers and in the same year MIC escaped from a broken valve resulting in four workers being exposed to the chemical. In addition to this workers were subject to routine low level exposure. The results of clandestine medical tests conducted on the workers by Carbide doctors were sent to the US and never released. A 'business confidential' safety audit conducted by a US team in May 1982 identified "61 hazards, 30 of them major and 11 in the dangerous phosgene/MIC units". Nothing was done.
The number of operators for the MIC unit was cut in half between 1980-1984. On the night of the disaster 6 safety measures designed to prevent a leak were either malfunctioning, shut down or otherwise inadequate. The refrigeration unit was turned off in order to save $40 a day. More than 15 years later UC have not yet explained why the factory was of flawed design, subject to reckless cost-cutting, stored highly unsafe quantities of lethal chemicals and operated devoid of any adequate safety systems or emergency procedures.
Medical consequencesGas circulated through the blood streams of victims, carrying toxins and causing damage to the eyes, lungs, kidneys, liver, intestines, muscles, brain and reproductive and immune systems.
Studies by the ICMR showed that the no. of people with exposure related symptoms actually increased between 1987 and 1991. According to one study there were three times more people with respiratory symptoms at the end of this period than at the beginning. The damage to the respiratory system and particularly the lungs comprises the most significant part of the overall health damage. Bronchial asthma, Chronic Obstructive Airways Disease, recurrent chest infections and fibrosis of the lungs are the principal effects of exposure induced lung injury.
Some 43% of the women from the severely affected communities who were pregnant at the time of the disaster aborted. Study of growth and development of children whose mothers were exposed to the gases during pregnancy revealed that the majority of children had delayed gross motor and language sector development. Studies have also presented evidence of chromosomal damage. A survey of psychiatric morbidity found that nearly 40% of those exposed suffer from post traumatic stress disorder.
Gasping for breath and near blind people stampeded into narrow alleys. In the mayhem children were torn from the hands of their mothers, never to see them again. Those who still could were screaming. Some were wracked with seizures and fell under trampling feet. Some, stumbling in a sea of gas, their lungs on fire, were drowned in their own bodily fluids. It was a massacre. Dawn broke over residential streets littered with corpses. In just a few hours numberless innocents had died in fierce pain and unimaginable terror.
Over half a million people were exposed to the deadly cocktail. The gases burned the tissues of the eyes and lungs, crossed into the bloodstream and damaged almost every system in the body. Nobody knows how many died but in the next days more than 7,000 death shrouds were sold in Bhopal. With an estimated 10-15 people continuing to die each month the number of deaths to date is put at close to 20,000. And today more than 120,000 people are still in need of urgent medical attention.
How could it happen?The immediate causes of the disaster are related to a cost-cutting drive initiated by Union Carbide Corporation. The moves directed at enhancing profits included reducing the number of personnel; lowering minimal training for operatives from 6 months to 15 days; use of low quality construction material and day labour; cutting down on vital safety measures and the adoption of hazardous operating procedures.
In 1981 a plant operator was killed by a phosgene gas leak. A further phosgene leak in January 1982 severely injured 28 workers and in the same year MIC escaped from a broken valve resulting in four workers being exposed to the chemical. In addition to this workers were subject to routine low level exposure. The results of clandestine medical tests conducted on the workers by Carbide doctors were sent to the US and never released. A 'business confidential' safety audit conducted by a US team in May 1982 identified "61 hazards, 30 of them major and 11 in the dangerous phosgene/MIC units". Nothing was done.
The number of operators for the MIC unit was cut in half between 1980-1984. On the night of the disaster 6 safety measures designed to prevent a leak were either malfunctioning, shut down or otherwise inadequate. The refrigeration unit was turned off in order to save $40 a day. More than 15 years later UC have not yet explained why the factory was of flawed design, subject to reckless cost-cutting, stored highly unsafe quantities of lethal chemicals and operated devoid of any adequate safety systems or emergency procedures.
Medical consequencesGas circulated through the blood streams of victims, carrying toxins and causing damage to the eyes, lungs, kidneys, liver, intestines, muscles, brain and reproductive and immune systems.
Studies by the ICMR showed that the no. of people with exposure related symptoms actually increased between 1987 and 1991. According to one study there were three times more people with respiratory symptoms at the end of this period than at the beginning. The damage to the respiratory system and particularly the lungs comprises the most significant part of the overall health damage. Bronchial asthma, Chronic Obstructive Airways Disease, recurrent chest infections and fibrosis of the lungs are the principal effects of exposure induced lung injury.
Some 43% of the women from the severely affected communities who were pregnant at the time of the disaster aborted. Study of growth and development of children whose mothers were exposed to the gases during pregnancy revealed that the majority of children had delayed gross motor and language sector development. Studies have also presented evidence of chromosomal damage. A survey of psychiatric morbidity found that nearly 40% of those exposed suffer from post traumatic stress disorder.
Union Carbide's responseThe corp. refused to respond to the medical disaster in Bhopal with any degree of humanity, concentrating instead on liability evasion. The company's legal team arrived in Bhopal days before their medical team. The hand picked medical team constantly emphasized that the leaked gases would not have any long-term health effects. Silence, denial and misinformation obstructed the relief effort. Chemicals that had already killed around 8,000 people were "nothing more than a potent tear gas" the Co. maintained. They recommended using sodium thiosulphate as an antidote, then advised against it. Success of the drug would have established that toxins had reached people's bloodstreams rather than affecting only their eyes and lungs. The Co. was anxious to play down the effects in order to avoid greater financial liability.
To this day the corporation refuses to disclose medical information on the leaked gases, maintaining it to be a ‘trade secret’. Company experts claimed that reports of victims deaths were greatly exaggerated, and that the leak only killed 1,408 people. In their current Bhopal 'Factsheet', UC maintain that "40 persons were with permanent total disability, & 2,680 persons were with permanent partial disability" from gas exposure, and that "massive, one-time exposure to MIC has not caused cancer, birth defects, or other delayed manifestations of medical effects".
Price of a lifeThe first suit filed by Melvin Belli claimed damages upto $15 billion. Later the Indian Govt arrogating itself the sole power to represent all the victims, filed a suit for upwards of $3 billion. 4 years after filing the suit and without informing the victims, the government settled for a sum of $470 million, nearly one-seventh of the original claim.
Toxic LegacyNearly one-fifth of the exposed population of 5,00,000 today suffers from a whole host of maladies like lung fibrosis, impaired vision, bronchial asthma, TB, breathlessness, loss of appetite, body pains, painful & irregular menstrual cycles, recurrent fever, persistent cough, neurological disorders, fatigue, weakness, anxiety and depression. Cancer and sterility are on the rise according to doctors involved in the treatment of the survivors. Researchers have found chromosomal aberrations in the exposed population indicating a strong likelihood of congenital malformations in the generations to come.
Over 70% of the exposed population were people earning subsistence wages. An estimated 50,000 are in need of alternative jobs because they can no longer do the physically demanding work that they did before. Less than 100 people affected by the gas have found regular employment under govt. economic rehabilitation schemes. Unable to carry on with physically demanding jobs, families have become economically devastated.
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