Bhopal: The World's Worst Industrial Disaster, and the One We Chose to Forget

In 1984, a chemical leak in central India killed thousands in a single night. Forty years later, we still can't agree on how many died, and almost no one was ever held responsible.

What happened

At around midnight on December 3, 1984, approximately 40 tons of methyl isocyanate gas, which is toxic, leaked out of a pesticide plant near Bhopal, a city in central India. The plant was run by Union Carbide India Limited and was majority-owned and controlled by Union Carbide Corporation, an American company. The residential areas nearby were asleep at the time of the leak. The gas being heavier than air settled in the streets below and caused irritation to the eyes and lungs. People woke up feeling suffocated and many collapsed as they tried to leave. The instant death toll stood at more than 3,000 with hundreds of thousands of people suffering from diseases which would last for decades after. More than 500,000 people were affected by the gas making the disaster the worst industrial accident in history.

What the evidence actually shows

First, a hard truth: nobody knows the exact number of deaths in Bhopal and may never know. While the number of instantaneous deaths was set to be 2,259, the Madhya Pradesh state government's welfare commissioner reported 15,248 officially confirmed deaths in 1997 and survivors' groups had put the estimate up to 22,000 by 2010. Estimates have been made to as high as 25,000 - 30,000. The difference between 2,259 and numbers close to 30,000 is related to whether you define what deaths are included in the estimate and the timeframe of the counting.

Second, it was not an accidental occurrence. Union Carbide is said to have reduced the number of operators working to about half, and their safety measures were not working properly or had been turned off. While the refrigeration system meant to keep the gas stable was turned off, the flare tower used to burn up any leaking gas was inactive. Once a leak was discovered at night, the supervisor had written it off as water, saying they should deal with it once they took a tea break. Sirens which were set to make sounds similar to drill alarms which sounded 20 times a week gave residents little motivation to evacuate. A New York Times investigation blamed the disaster on operating mistakes, faulty design, poor maintenance, inadequate training and cost cutting which made the safety measures vulnerable.

Third, there was little accountability. The company paid $470 million which amounted to about $500 per injured victim for a lifetime of damage in a settlement with the Indian government in 1989. The company's chairman, Warren Anderson, was arrested soon after the disaster but he posted bail and fled to the US where he died in 2014 without facing trial. In 2010, seven Indian executives of the company were convicted for being negligent and given 2-year jail sentences, a decision that was perceived as insufficient. Dow Chemical Company, which bought Union Carbide in 2001 says that it is not responsible anymore, while the site reportedly holds hundreds of tons of toxic waste and over 1 million tons of contaminated soil. In this sense, the disaster continues.

Interpretation

The Chernobyl and Bhopal disasters occurred within a period of about two years and both were caused by similar reasons which include ignored warnings and inactive safety systems leading to environmental and public health damages. However, despite having more casualties, Bhopal disaster remains less well-known. What could be the reason? The answer is disturbing. The people in Bhopal were poor, in a marginal community in a country far from the media center that shapes global disaster memory. Most victims were undocumented, had no legal representation and had little means hence making it possible for the settlements to be as low as $500 for each life and further hiding of information.

The case has been analyzed by lawyers, academics, journalists as an ecocide – large scale destruction of environment and people inhabiting it. Whatever the name, the Bhopal disaster illustrates what happens when companies treat safety as a cost to be cut and some people's lives as dispensable. The disaster did not occur out of the blue; it happened due to constant decisions to delay repairs, disable safety systems and ignore warnings. Ongoing nature of the disaster is partially due to the fact that there was very little accountability.

A reflection for the future: societies tend to memorialize the disasters that they have been told to remember. Bhopal serves as a major test to see if lesser known tragedies are going to get recognition.

Sources

Britannica, "Bhopal disaster" · Amnesty International, "Clouds of Injustice: Bhopal 20 Years On" · The Bhopal Medical Appeal (bhopal.org) · Chemistry World, "Bhopal disaster explainer" · Smithsonian Magazine, "The World's Deadliest Industrial Disaster" · The New York Times, "The Bhopal Disaster: How It Happened"