Bhopal Gas Disaster: A Case Study on the Bhopal Tragedy | India

Bhopal Gas Disaster: A Case Study on the Bhopal Tragedy !

Mass Panic:

It was a chilly December night in Bhopal in 1984 between 12.30 and 1 a.m. when people woke up, coughing violently and with eyes burning as if chilli powder had been flung into them. Poisonous gas was spreading in high concentration. As the irritation grew and breathing became impossible, they fled, some with their families and many without.

They got on to whatever they could—cycles, bullock-carts, buses, cars, auto-rickshaws, tempos, trucks and mopeds. Scooters had whole families on them. Trucks were full but people hung on outside, some grabbing the legs and hands of those already inside. Small children, old men and women were pushed in handcarts or carried.

By 3 a.m. the main thoroughfares were jammed with an unending and uncontrollable stream of humanity. The streets were foul with vomit. Those who fell were trampled by the crowd. The worst affected were the children – unable to walk and breathe, they simply suffocated and died.

Thousands fled to towns hundreds of kilometres away-Sehore, Vidisha, Hoshangabad, Raisen, Obaidullaganj, Ashta, Ujjain, Dewas, Indore, Ratlam and even Nagpur 400 km away. About 10,000 men, women and children reached Sehore between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. Another 10,000 went to Raisen.

They flocked to the district hospitals for treatment. Hundreds of people who dashed to Ujjain and Indore had to be immediately hospitalised there. In the midst of this frenzy, there was no dearth of valour. Hundreds of taxi, auto-rickshaw, tempo and truck operators risked their lives to evacuate thousands of people.

The gas that spewed out of the high-tech factory of the multinational Union Carbide spread over some 40 sq km and affected people seriously as distant as 5 km to 8 km downwind. For nearly 200,000 people, a quarter of the city’s population, Bhopal became a gas chamber.

If it were not for the two lakes of Bhopal which came in the way of the gas cloud and neutralised it, an even bigger tragedy could have taken place.

The railway station lay close to the factory and smack in the path of the gas cloud. It carried off passengers in waiting rooms, porters and conscientious railway staff who stayed on. Rahman Patel, the deputy chief power controller, risked his life by staying in the railway station.

When Patel’s chief came in response to frantic calls, he found him still at work, while his wife and 14-year-old son had already died in the neighbouring railway colony. The control room which monitors movements of all trains on this vital trunk route, was, however, in a mess – vomit and human excreta scattered all around, files and registers in disorder, chairs knocked down.

After midnight, the 116 Up Gorakhpur-Bombay Express rolled in but its passengers miraculously escaped death, presumably because they kept their windows closed because of the cold night but also because Station Superintendent H.S. Bhurvey risked his life to wave the train on to safety. Bhurvey, who was found dead later, also alerted all the nearby stations to stop trains from coming into Bhopal.

For more than seven hours, this major station remained cut off from the rest of the world. Next morning, hundreds of sick and writhing people were found all around, on platforms, on staircases, in the office rooms and even on the railway tracks. On the road and footpaths around the station were the bodies of poor beggars and urchins.

Those who could not flee made their way to the hospitals. At Bhopal’s 1,200-bed Hamidia Hospital, the first patient with eye trouble reported at 1.15 a.m. Within five minutes, there were a thousand and by 2.30 a.m. there were 4,000, suffering from not just eye ailments but also from respiratory problems. The hospital staff’s first response was of shock and bewilderment.

Nobody knew what to do and Union Carbide was not volunteering any useful information. Several staff members at Hamidia, about 3 km from the factory, were soon overwhelmed by the gas themselves and had to be replaced by a fresh medical team. Journalists visiting the hospital at 2.30 a.m. saw only one doctor, and he had no medicine to treat patients with.

Till early morning, in fact, there were hardly any doctors and medical students from nearby hostels were filling in. Victims were still being brought in army trucks to the hospitals. In front of hundreds of silent, helpless spectators, people and especially small children were breathing their last. Even when the treatment began in earnest it was only for token relief – application of an eye ointment or an injection to ease the spasms caused by the constriction of the trachea.

By the time the sun rose, hundreds, some even say thousands, lay dead, many on the roads and many at home under their tattered quilts – corpses with distended bellies were beginning to rot, attracting vultures and dogs.

Another 2000 lay dying in hospitals and homes. An equally hideous sight was that of the carcasses of hundreds of dead cattle and animals all over the gas-affected area, swollen up to size of elephants.

By about 1 a.m., about 25,000 people were crammed into Hamidia Hospital. The floor was splattered with blood and vomit. Said a doctor at Hamidia – “I was standing in the paediatric department.

There was such a terrible crowd, that there wasn’t even place to keep bodies on the floor. As soon as a patient was declared dead, his relatives would just vanish with the body. I saw at least 50 bodies taken away like this.

I would estimate that anything between 500 and 1,000 bodies were taken away before their deaths could be registered.” It was difficult for survivors to identify their dead. It was difficult even to distinguish between dead and half-dead bodies. People at the mortuary were unable to cope and conduct post-mortems.

Dead Administration:

While the administration slumbered, the army moved in. The sub-area commander, Brigadier N. K. Maini, had been called by retired Brigadier M.L. Garg, general manager of Straw Products, a factory which lay in the path of the gas cloud at about 1.15 a.m.

Garg, who had been told by workers at his factory that they were suffocating, needed help to evacuate some 176 people. He immediately approached the army and got help: several cars and closed trucks. Straw Products workers were evacuated to the military hospitals but not before some were dead and others seriously ill.

By 2.45 a.m. the army had sent a fleet of vehicles and started a systematic search of houses for people trapped within. Major G.S. Khanuja of the Electrical and Mechanical Engineers Centre made repeated trips to the factory area setting up a continuous evacuation channel to the Military Hospital as well as the Hamidia Hospital all through the night.

As Praful Bidwai of ‘The Times of India’ put it “if there was a wretchedly undignified, hideously helpless form of megadeath after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this is it.”

Death Drama:

The death drama continued for days. Thousands continued to pour into the hospitals of Bhopal, as some 500 doctors and supporting staff rushed in from other cities of Madhya Pradesh.

This is how a foreign correspondent, who reached the city 30 hours after the leak, described the state of gas-affected Bhopal – At the factory, dead bodies were still on the ground, being picked up and loaded aboard a waiting truck. Everywhere one toned, people were retching, racked by violent coughing.

All the shops in the city were closed, and on every street people were lying in the gutters. They were dead, humped in agonised frozen postures, like birds shot from the sky. In their midst were real birds, vultures.

When the vultures swooped away, the dogs would charge in and tear off pieces of flesh. Rescuing the dead from the predators were rifle-toting soldiers of the Indian army, joined by volunteer vigilantes carrying long staves. Little children with haunted, running, swollen eyes told of scampering through the night, with no particular destination.

They asked the soldiers where they could find their parents. The soldiers replied, ‘Wait here. A truck will be along and take you to the hospital. Everyone will be there.’ The frightened children waited and when the truck came, it took the children to Hamidia Hospital. The army was there too, keeping the human traffic flowing without the usual pushing and shoving.

The troops had set up 60 tents, which became instant wards for 20 people each. Some distance away, the army had set up a morgue to which the patrols in the city brought the dead to be identified. ‘I thought I had seen everything,’ said Subedar A.B. Bhosale, ‘but this is worse than war!’

The third day saw another 400 deaths at the city’s hospitals, which said that 75,000 people had been treated by then. Fresh cases of MIC poisoning continued to arrive, raising fears of after­effects.

Some victims showed signs of paralysis, 500 developed corneal ulcers and doctors said that they could go blind. At the burial ground, people helping to dig graves were exhausted. “We are sick of burying the bodies. There is no space,” they said.

On the sixth day there was yet another scare. Some 51 fresh cases who had earlier been sent home after being treated for minor eye ailments had to be rushed to the hospitals in a serious condition. Doctors believed that these people may have been affected by the fish eaten from the Bhopal Lake.

The main fish market of the city was immediately sealed off by the authorities as a precautionary measure. The next day the government announced that slaughter houses were being closed down so that the meat of gas-affected animals could not be sold but there was no ban on the sale of fish. On the seventh day a fresh panic over the disposal of the remaining gas struck the city.

The Neutralisation Drama:

Even as hospital admissions and deaths began to show a steady downward trend, the seventh day after the disaster brought a new source of panic to the city – there were still 15 tonnes of the deadly gas left in the factory, which had to be disposed off before Bhopal could really feel safe.

The government entrusted the task of deciding the disposal process to a team of senior scientists headed by Dr. S. Varadarajan, director-general of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). Varadarajan set up his office in the Central government’s Regional Research Laboratory at Bhopal and shrouded himself in complete secrecy, nerve-wracking for the rest of the city.

Journalists were told that there were four ways of disposing off the gas – neutralise it with a chemical like caustic soda (as is expected to happen in the factory’s vent scrubber), incinerate it (as is expected to happen in the factory’s flare tower), pack it into drums and ship it off to the parent Union Carbide in the US or elsewhere, or simply start up the factory and turn it into the factory’s final product, the pesticide carbaryl.

It was obvious that the company was pushing hard for the last option. Union Carbide Corporation of the US had immediately recommended to its units across the world: use up the remaining MIC to produce carbaryl before governments move in to stop those plants.

The local Union Carbide management had reportedly tried to reopen the plant on December 7 itself, just four days after the tragedy, to dispose off the remaining gas. But the staff which reported for duty was turned back by the district administration in control of the plant.

Matter of Faith:

At the end of all this, a decision was taken to neutralise the remaining gas. Despite the assurance that sophisticated technology and expertise would be used, it was still a matter of faith.

The Chief Minister announced on the evening of December 15 – “The scene is set for the operation to neutralise the poisonous gas in the Union Carbide plant. Even though the actual handling is to be done by the Union Carbide people taking full responsibility, the go-ahead has to be given by us — that is me.

It is no doubt one of the most crucial and agonising decisions I have been called upon to make. In such moments of supreme loneliness, nothing impels us more than one’s faith in our creator.

Even though faith springs eternal in the human heart, at this moment of time it stands rudely shaken by horrendous events of last few days. That faith has to be restored. This operation shall therefore, be called Operation Faith. Let us pray for its success.”

Said ‘The Hindustan Times’ on this announcement- “It was not so much the fear of the lethal gas as the ‘crisis of faith’ that had forced a few lakh people to flee the city. The Chief Minister’s statement issued on the eve of the operation was generally interpreted to show that he himself was not quite confident about the course he had chosen to dispose off the MIC gas.”

However, overnight the preparations for the operation began. Water tankers and fire brigade vans drenched every street with water, though nobody knew how this would prevent the gas from affecting people.

The policemen on duty prepared for their own safety by keeping ready buckets filled with water and small towels. At the factory itself, fire tenders drenched the jute screens on the perimeter.

Other fire tenders sent jets of water soaring into the screens covering the MIC section of the plant. Once every five to 10 minutes a helicopter would hover over the plant spraying water, and occasionally even over neighbouring colonies. Hundreds of oxygen masks were rushed in for plant personnel to use as a safety measure.

At 8.30 a.m. on December 16, the operation started with the much publicised presence of the Chief Minister, who even took time off to argue with journalists that only 85,000 people had left the city. The governor, Professor K.M. Chandy, who had earlier refused to drink any water in Bhopal, also visited the plant twice.

Outside the factory’s gate, Bharatiya Janata Party President Atal Behari Vajpayee argued with policemen who first denied him permission to enter the plant and then allowed him in. By the end of the first day, four tonnes out of the 15 tonnes estimated to be in storage tank No. 619 and 1.2 tonnes in stainless steel drums were converted into pesticides.

The next morning, the same routine of fire tenders and helicopters was repeated. In front of the gate, to instil confidence in the people, stood two army officers, Brigadier N.K. Maini and Major G.S. Khanuja, who had risked their lives on the morning of December 2 to evacuate some 10,000 people. By the end of that day, another four tonnes had been used up.

By the end of the third day, 12 tonnes had been disposed off, leaving just about four more tonnes to be converted. But by that day, the government team also realised that there was a lot more gas in the tank than the factory’s records had earlier indicated.

The operation which was expected to end in four or five days finally ended on Saturday seven days after it began, and nearly 24 tonnes of the gas had to be converted, over 50 per cent more than earlier estimated. Union Carbide did not even know how much gas it had in store.

The Government’s Response:

The government’s response was uncertain and tardy. The Central government, at the request of the State government, flew in a team of doctors, followed by a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) team. The district magistrate ordered closure of the factory on December 3 itself and arrested five officers of the company in Bhopal.

A judicial enquiry into the tragedy was announced. The next day two teams of chemical industry and environmental experts were flown in from Delhi. The new Prime Minister (at that time), Rajiv Gandhi, broke his election campaign to fly to Bhopal.

But apart from these routine bureaucratic responses, the State or the Central government did precious little during the first two days. Except for the army, there was no help coming to the 100,000-odd people who fled from their homes that morning. Bhopal’s superintendent of police claimed that police used whatever vans and trucks were available and took people out of Bhopal.

But he argued that as the administration had no clue of the nature of the gas leak, there was little it could do.

The government’s centralisation and lack of initiative, so visible on ordinary days, caused it to literally collapse under stress. Individuals in the administration worked themselves to the wall but there was no overall planning.

In those first few hours, there was complete confusion. Once the leak had been confirmed the government apparently decided to evacuate the city.

But no one announced this decision to the public at large. The only people who got informed through the government grapevine were the elite – the ministers and those who lived in the colonies far from the plant, and even among those it was mainly people who had telephones. The rest of the people were left to fend for themselves.

Epidemic Fears:

But three weeks later, there were again fears of outbreaks of epidemics as millions of green flies, attracted by improperly disposed off carcasses invaded the city. The army had initially helped in the removal and disposal of animal carcasses but the authorities admitted that all the animals could not be buried because of a shortage of sanitary workers and scavengers. Most of the local municipal staff had been affected by the gas and sanitary workers had to be summoned from other towns.

Equally disorganised and callous was the administration’s response to people’s queries. The government began to put out news bulletins over All India Radio on the second day itself that the situation was fast returning to normal and that everything was safe, which journalists told the Chief Minister sounded much like the pronouncements of Carbide officials.

The people were suspicious about the air they breathed, the water they drank, and the meat, flour, fish and vegetables they ate. They wanted to know whether the dead animals would lead to an epidemic, whether any gas remained in the factory and whether it could leak out again.

Instead of taking the people into full confidence, there was a volley of confused and contradictory statements. A newspaper report pointed out that on December 4, on his visit to Bhopal, Rajiv Gandhi had declared that the water had been tested and that no toxic substances had been found in it.

But Varadarajan later revealed that testing started only on December 5. Not surprisingly when it came to neutralisation of the remaining gas, the people simply fled the city in unprecedented numbers.

The CBI team which arrived on December 3 itself immediately began interrogation of officials and the supervisory staff of the plant, warned Carbide officials not to leave Bhopal without permission, and seized all log books and relevant papers pertaining to the storage and release of MIC.

When a team of US technical experts of the Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), USA, headed by former works manager W. Woomer turned up in Bhopal three days after the disaster, the government refused them entry into the plant as they could destroy evidence.

Arrest Fiasco:

But the manner in which the government handled the arrest of Warren Anderson, the UCC chairperson, was ridiculous. As Anderson landed in Bhopal with Union Carbide of India Ltd’s (UCIL) Chairperson Keshub Mahindra and Managing Director V.R Gokhale, all three were taken into custody, whisked away in a car with a heavy police escort to the company’s guest house, and lodged in separate rooms from which telephone lines had already been disconnected. They were charged with a series of offences, several of which are non-bailable and punishable with life imprisonment or terms ranging from five to 10 years.

A government official said that the arrests were made for “constructive criminal liability for the events that led to the great tragedy”. The Chief Minister himself boldly declared – “This government cannot remain a helpless spectator to the tragedy and knows its duty towards thousands of innocent citizens”, and charged that lives of citizens had been “so rudely and traumatically affected by the cruel and wanton negligence on the part of the management of Union Carbide”. An early release of an Indian news agency even declared that the officials of the multinational UCC “can be sentenced to death.”

But this bravado, which even brought protests from the White House, ended almost as soon as it began. Within six hours of his arrest Anderson was whisked away from Bhopal in full secrecy, without being produced before a magistrate, as normally required under law, with a paltry bail sum of Rs.20,000, put on a government plane and flown to New Delhi.

Said an embarrassed Chief Minister who tried to make the best of the situation – “What has been done is within the four corners of the law… We wanted him to go in the overall public interest. Not that I feared violence but it could have happened.” But few were impressed by this feat. Said ‘Nai Duniya’ – “The government is staging this drama in order to hide its own shortcoming with regard to the gas tragedy.”

The worst record of the government was in the manner it took up relief work. On December 9, the government announced an immediate relief of Rs.100 for ordinary injuries and Rs. 2,000 for seriously injured persons. This immediately became an excuse for political favours.

At Hamidia Hospital, a Congress (l) municipal councillor insisted that doctors readmit a patient while doctors alleged that the patient wanted to take the relief money of Rs. 2,000 by being admitted to the hospital for five days at a stretch, even though he was fit to be discharged.

The doctors resented this political interference and went on a lightning strike. They relented only when the corporator apologised. Said a strike placard – “Congress musclemanship is deadlier than MIC.”

Resentment and Relief:

Most of the affected people were poor, manual, daily wage workers and they found themselves suffering from the effects of MIC even weeks after the exposure, the chief one being persistent breathlessness.

Manual labour became impossible – they felt dizzy even walking one kilometre in the sun. And out of work and money, they found themselves even more diseased, weak and hungry, virtually on the verge of starvation. The entire episode left the survivors, their health and their economy totally shattered.

Describing a typical situation, 30-year-old handcart puller Sabir Ahmed said that he had ventured out to work nearly three weeks after the gas leak. But this breadearner of a five-member family had to return home soon feeling ill. Porter Bilal Ahmed was in a similar situation – he had received treatment on December 3 at Hamidia Hospital but nothing after that.

And he was still experiencing irritation in the eyes, chest pain and nausea, and was finding it impossible to work. Shravan Singh, 34, a lathe operator, now found his earlier occupation which used to fetch him some Rs.25 a day, so tiring that he had to turn to selling roasted gram as a pavement hawker earning less than Rs.10 a day to feed his family of four.

Women often found themselves in a worse situation. They continued to be plagued by blinding headaches, dizziness and could not focus on anything for long. Cooking before the fire brought about exposure to wood-smoke and increased the irritation in their eyes, making it impossible to cook more than two chappatis at a time. Bringing water from the nearby well or tap tired them out for the whole day.

Many women had lost their sons and husbands and now it was impossible for them to survive, especially as they could not work in their diseased condition. Many of the women living in J.P. Nagar opposite Union Carbide, are bidi workers. Said one bidi worker – “We cannot see the bidi thread after a while; our eyes burn. And unless you make a sizeable number of bidis and sell them each day, there is no profit.”

Long Wait:

Voluntary agencies working in the affected settlements reported innumerable health problems. Said the Nagrik Rahat aur Punarwas Samiti organised by film-makers Tapan Bose and Suhasini Mulay – “Our women volunteers have found that almost every woman exposed to MIC is suffering from severe disorders of the reproductive system in addition to respiratory and gastric complications.

They complain of up to five menstrual discharges during the last six weeks with moderate to heavy bleeding. Most women are complaining of abdominal pain, and highly acidic vaginal secretions which cause burning and pregnant women are facing even greater problems.” The government did not pay any heed to the committee’s suggestion that five properly equipped diagnostic and therapeutic centres be set up in the affected areas.

The government itself did not attempt any serious documentation of the extent of injury and new symptoms emerging. No effort was made to take X-rays, collect and analyse blood, sputum or urine samples and keep people under observation. Even worse, the entire affair was shrouded in total secrecy.

Even as people complained of various ailments, the government consciously tried to suppress all information. According to one report, the Dean of the Gandhi Medical College in Bhopal even called a meeting of representatives of private medical practitioners in mid-January to demand that they disclose no facts pertaining to MIC poisoning to anyone but the State government.

Public Protest:

By early January, the mood turned angry and resentful. On January 1, the Nagrik Rahat aur Punarwas Committee organised a ‘chakkajam’ (stop the wheels) programme by squatting on the main thoroughfare of the city.

On January 3, the Zahareeli Gas Kand Sangharsh Morcha, a forum organised by scientists, social activists and trade union workers, observed a Dhikkar Diwas (Day of Condemnation) and a dharna in front of the Chief Minister’s house. The day-long dharna turned into a 10 day-long dharna and finally got converted into a ‘rail roko’ (stop the trains) programme.

The single biggest ground for resentment was the delayed distribution of ex gratia payments by the government which had announced that Rs.10,000 would be given to the heir of every dead person, Rs.2,000 to those seriously affected and Rs.100 to 1,000 to those slightly affected. In its initial panic, the government had rushed payments and Rs.36.67 lakh was paid in cash to 5,724 victims.

But on December 7, the government suspended the disbursement and announced that it would be resumed later — and payment would be by cheque — only after a quick house to house survey of the affected localities.

But payments remained suspended well into January. No government department wanted to shoulder the responsibility of sorting the needy from the avaricious, who also wanted to cash in on the tragedy. There were other difficult questions. Who is an “affected” person? Which is the “seriously affected area”?

Equally disorganised and lackadaisical was the government’s handling of free distribution of milk and rations. Apart from the 1,000 litres of free milk being given out daily the government had announced in December that all families in the affected areas of the city would be given 3 kg of wheat and rice per unit, on their ration card, for December.

After the protests in the city, the benefit was extended to January, increased to 12 kg a unit, and for all slum dwellers of the city because of the severe dislocation in city life over the previous month.

But the government did nothing to ensure proper logistics. Nearly 21,000 temporary ration cards had to be made almost overnight for residents who had none. No extra staff was appointed for making ration cards and the existing ration shops were expected to distribute these extra rations.

The chaos that resulted is obvious. The Bhopal tragedy has amply shown that it would be futile to expect the government to deal with such emergencies with any measure of efficiency. And yet high-risk industrialisation had made this an imperative.

What Happened on that Fateful Night:

Exactly what happened in the Union Carbide factory that night is still not known officially from the Government of India. But press reports have built up the following sequence of events.

MIC is stored in three double-walled, partly buried stainless steel tanks—code-named 610, 611 and 619. While thousands slept in their huts around the pesticide factory on the night of December 2/3, a skeleton staff of 120 workers inside the factory ended its evening shift around 10.45 p.m. and a new shift took over around 11 p.m.

One of the workers then noticed that the pressure in tank 610—the tank from which all the MIC finally escaped—had risen from the 2 lb per square inch (psi), recorded by the earlier shift, to around 10 psi.

Corresponding tank temperatures were not available as they were not logged normally. The five-fold increase in pressure within an hour was dismissed in the belief that the pressure recording instrument could be faulty. Shakil Qureshi, the supervisor on duty, said later, “Instruments often didn’t work. They got corroded. Crystals would form on them.”

About 11.30 p.m., workers in the plant realised there was an MIC leak somewhere – as tears began to stream from their eyes. A few of them walked around the MIC structure and spotted a drip of liquid about 50 feet off the ground and some yellowish-white gas accompanying the drip.

They told Qureshi about the leak at about 11.45 p.m. Qureshi, however, decided to deal with the leak after the tea break, scheduled for 12.15 a.m. Qureshi says he was told only of a water leak. But by the time the tea break ended at 12.40 am., events were moving very fast.

Suman Dey, a worker at the plant noticed, that the temperature gauge on tank 610 had reached 25°C, the top of its scale, and pressure was rapidly moving towards 40 psi, the point at which the emergency relief valve opens. He rushed to the storage tanks to investigate and was horrified.

As he stood on a concrete slab above the storage tanks, the slab suddenly began to shake. “There was a tremendous sound, a messy boiling sound, underneath the slab, like a cauldron.”

He ran, only to hear a loud noise behind him. The slab made of 60 feet of concrete, at least 6 inches thick, was cracking. The heat was like a blast furnace. He couldn’t get within six feet of it.

He then heard a loud hissing sound and saw gas shoot out of a tall stack connected to the tank and form a white cloud drifting over the plant and towards the sleeping neighbourhood. In the plant, he found that the pressure indicator had gone above 55 psi, the top of the scale, and the safety valve had opened, releasing MIC from the storage tank.

As the workers realised it was a massive MIC leak, Qureshi ordered all water sources in the area shut off. Over three hours before, a supervisor who had arrived only two months before from a Calcutta battery factory owned by Carbide, had asked a novice operator to clean a pipe. The supervisor told him to open a nozzle on the pipes and put a water hose in to clean the inside.

The pipe took filtered MIC to the storage tanks. It had a valve that had been closed. The slip blind which ought to have been inserted to make sure the water did not leak through the valve, was missing. Valves in the plant were notorious for leaking and Qureshi claimed there were no instruments either to check leaky valves.

As Qureshi realised the enormity of the leak, he asked for water to be sprayed on the leak. But nothing seemed to work. The water jet failed to reach the top of the 120 feet stack from which MIC was escaping. Suman Dey then rushed to turn on the vent gas scrubber to neutralise the escaping gas.

The scrubber had been under maintenance and had been removed from an “operating mode to a standby mode”. The flow meter did not indicate that the circulation of caustic soda—the neutralising agent—had started. No one knew of the caustic soda concentration because no analysis had been made since October.

The factory has two sirens—a loud, continuous one for the public and a muted one meant for factory workers alone. The public siren was put on around 1 a.m. nearly an hour after the gas had started escaping, but it was put on only for a few minutes, when the muted siren took over. This followed the company’s procedure which was evolved to avoid alarming the public around the factory over tiny leaks.

Most residents around the factory woke up not because of the siren but because of the irritation caused by the gas. Meanwhile, an announcement was made over the factory’s public address system about the wind direction and the workers fled opposite to it.

This saved them all except Qureshi who fell, broke some bones, inhaled the gas, and was then hospitalised for a long time. The public siren was put on again at 3.00 a.m., after the works manager arrived, but by then there was no need to tell anybody-hundreds were already dead and many were destined to die over the next few hours and days.

UCC’s report on the incident claims that tank 610 had 90,000 pounds of MIC at the time of the incident. For approximately two hours, the safety valve remained open releasing over 50,000 pounds of MIC in vapour and liquid form—and goodness alone knows what other gases—phosgene, hydrogen cyanide, carbon dioxide, all of which have been mentioned. Sometime between 1.30 a.m. and 2.30 a.m. the safety valve reseated, as the tank pressure went below 40 psi.

Safety Devices:

The plant has two main safety devices. The first is a scrubber, which neutralises the gas with caustic soda. If the scrubber fails, the gas goes to the flare tower to be burnt off. Both the safety systems failed to work that night. For days, newspapers reported guesses about why the safety systems did not work.

On December 7 the first real bit of news appeared. Leaders of the factory’s employees’ union claimed that the vent gas scrubber had been under repair. About 10 days later, the factory’s Works Manager J. Mukund publicly contradicted this report but was unable to answer how he knew the vent scrubber had worked.

UCC has since claimed that the used caustic soda tank was hot to touch (60°C) on the morning of December 3, indicating that it must have worked. But it is now also widely accepted that the scrubber was grossly under-designed and could not have neutralised more than a fraction of escaping gases.

The flare did not work because the management had disconnected the pipeline running from the vent scrubber to the flare tower for maintenance and connected it to a vent gas pipe which went straight to the atmosphere. Even the flame on the flare tower had been shut off. Thus, all the plant’s safety defences were down.

There were three other safety systems that were either not used that night or proved to be under-designed. First, the factory has a network of water jets. But they could not reach the height at which the MIC was gushing into the air.

Second, the MIC storage tanks are connected to a 30-tonne refrigeration system which keeps the liquid MIC at 0°C. The refrigeration system had been closed down in June 1984, and the gas was at 15°- 20°C.

Had the refrigeration system been working or capable of working, the MIC could have been cooled. Refrigeration would have increased the time available for the detection of the chemical reaction and safe disposal of the material before the reaction reached a dangerous speed.

Third, the Bhopal plant had three tanks, each with a 60-tonne capacity, one of which was to be always kept empty for contingencies. But all the tanks contained MIC that night.

Violent Reaction:

But what caused the violent reaction that night? Union Carbide’s scientists have been aware of the possibility of an explosive ‘runaway reaction’ in MIC. This gas can react with almost any chemical, including itself, to generate substantial quantities of heat and carbon dioxide.

The heat released causes the reaction to speed up, which generates more heat, and pressure can thus go on building up till it finally reaches an explosive level. The longer the MIC sits in storage tanks, the greater the chance of side-reactions building up to a runaway reaction. The MIC at the Bhopal plant had been sitting in the storage tank since October as the demand for carbaryl was not very high.

The precise sequence of events still remains obscure. Carbide’s report has claimed that it was an unique combination of large amounts of water (120 to 240 gallons), higher than normal amounts of chloroform in the stored MIC (several per cent instead of a maximum of 0.5 per cent), and an iron catalyst, that lead to the violent reaction in MIC, stored at a higher than specified temperature. The heat released by the reaction between the water and MIC raised the temperature in the tank.

Simultaneously, MIC got polymerised, the reaction being catalysed by iron resulting from the corrosion of the tank walls due to the high temperatures. Carbide claims that the corrosion rate increased markedly because of the presence of an abnormally high level of chloroform. The rapid release of carbon dioxide in large quantities then helped to build up high pressures, which forced the foaming mass of chemicals out of the tank.

Several Indian experts are not convinced of Carbide’s explanation. The quantity of iron needed for the explosive reaction could not have come from the corrosion of the stainless steel tank.

Carbide claims that the reaction lasted only three-and-a-half hours. Indian experts, therefore, argue that iron must have been already mixed with the water that seeped into the tank.

UCC, in its drive for cost cutting, had used pipes and valves made of inexpensive carbon steel instead of stainless steel, against its own safety rules. Thus, the iron must have come from the pipelines and not the tank.

Dr. S. Varadarajan, who lead the investigations on behalf of the government, expounded another hypothesis. Small quantities of water—probably as little as two to three litres—could have reacted with phosgene in the tank, mixed with MIC as an impurity to keep it stable.

The phosgene-water reaction produced heat, carbon dioxide and hydrochloric acid. The heat and hydrochloric acid acted as the accelerators of the polymerisation of MIC leading to a runway reaction. The reaction could have started even two weeks before the fatal night, steadily building up imperceptibly to anyone.

Speaking at the Indian Science Congress in January 1985, Varadarajan claimed that his team had not found anyone in Bhopal who had any idea of the chemistry of MIC. Engineers at the plant went by operating manuals only and did not know the plant design.

Efforts to locate the original designers of the factory to learn more about the system had also failed. There is still an absence of hard evidence to confirm exactly what happened.

No reliable records exist of a number of parameters involved. The examination of the contents of the tank, particularly the quantity of polymer available in the tank, may help to reach some conclusions.

The Death Toll:

Exactly how many died in the Bhopal disaster remains a mystery. On the first day, the government counted 400 dead and unofficial sources said 500. The second day, the gap widened. The government figures rose to 550 while unofficial figures jumped to 1,200.

The third day saw another 400 deaths at city hospitals. The unofficial figures, thus, rose to 1,600 but the government gave out only 620—583 dead in Bhopal and 37 in other cities. On the fourth day, as unofficial figures went up to 1,700, the government doubled its earlier death estimates to 1,327.

But from the fifth day, the gap between official and unofficial deaths increased again. By the end of January 1985, the government was counting 1,430 dead while newspapers all over the world and in India were quoting the unofficial figure of about 2,500.

The Indian Council of Medical Research has since claimed that most of the deaths occurred in the first 48-72 hours, about 1200 died in hospital wards and the total death figure was probably 2000. In its petition in the US courts, the government has claimed 1700 dead.

But there are many who believe that even the unofficial estimates are not anywhere near the truth. Members of the Zahreeli Gas Kand Sangharsh Morcha have claimed that corpses were picked up by the army in hundreds and trucked away to be buried and cremated en masse. In those first two horrendous days, few were interested in counting bodies. The Morcha has claimed that the number of dead must have been over 5,000.

A UNICEF official who returned to New Delhi after a week-long visit to Bhopal pointed out in his confidential report in December that the death toll may have been as high as 10,000 and that many government officials and doctors privately believed this figure to be true.

The local Cloth Merchants’ Association had claimed that retailers had sold or distributed cloth for over 10,000 corpses. UNICEF estimated that affected people were about 200,000, of which 80 per cent were Muslims, 75 per cent slum dwellers, 40 per cent children below 15, 20 per cent women in the reproductive age group, and 10 per cent elderly women.

The result of the door-to-door survey conducted by the Bombay-based Tata Institute of Social Studies and other schools of social work has failed to gain any credibility. The survey was commissioned with great fanfare by the State government and its results were to become the basis for relief, compensation and long-term treatment. But its total tally of 1021 dead, even less than the officially counted bodies, has been a subject of much derision.

The survey failed to cover 600 families in which multiple deaths could have occurred. It could not enumerate 315 families in the worst affected areas who had migrated to other cities after the disaster, and another 286 families whose houses were locked.

The survey also failed to cover over 3000 people who were shelter less in the city. Many beggars and pavement dwellers who lived around the railway station had died in the gas tragedy. The government does not as yet have an authentic list of the victims.

The Center for Social Medicine and Community Health of the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi has also conducted a survey in which one out of every 15 household living in the most adversely and moderately affected 29 bastis, with a total population of about 68,000, were enumerated.

The survey actually found 82 dead and five missing people in 65 households—one death each in 49 households, two deaths each in 11 households, three deaths each in four households and four deaths in one household—which gives a total death rate of 1305 in the 29 bastis surveyed.

The study found that those who died were the poorest. More than half the affected people belonged to an income group—about Rs.150 per head per month—which cannot afford two full meals a day around the year.

Those who died were even more disadvantaged than the overall affected population. The patched up planks, pieces of tin, plastic sheets and thatch which formed the walls and roofs of their hutments, left gaping holes for the gas to come into their grossly overcrowded single ‘rooms’.

Seventy-four per cent ran on foot after hearing of the poisonous gas, six per cent on a vehicle (motorised or bicycle), and 21 per cent decided to stay. None of those who went on a vehicle died. Three quarters of the deaths were amongst those who ran on foot and one quarter amongst those who stayed. The relatively affluent got better protection in their better built houses.

The Killer Company:

Union Carbide is the third largest chemical company and 37th largest Industrial Corporation in the US. It owns 700 chemical plants, mines, mills and other business operations in 37 countries.

Like the other big chemical corporations, it has been going through a rough time in the last few years as the world market for chemical goods has fallen. As the world’s largest producer of ethylene glycol, a major building block in plastics production, Carbide has been seriously affected by its overproduction. Its annual sales at $9 billion were the same in 1983 as they had been in 1979, with less value in real money terms.

Carbide’s operations are extremely diverse. It has been in the nuclear weapons game since the Manhattan Project of World War II, and is the sole contractor manufacturing enriched uranium and weapons components for the US government.

It has uranium mines in Colorado and Wyoming and vanadium and chromium mines in South Africa and Namibia. It also makes consumer products like Eveready batteries—it is the world’s largest producer of batteries—industrial gases, and molecular sieves for removing organic chemical pollutants from wastewater streams.

Pesticides molecular sieves for removing organic chemical pollutants from wastewater streams. Pesticides production is only a relatively small part of Carbide’s operations and not the most profitable. Sales of agricultural products declined in 1983. Carbamate pesticides, manufactured from MIC, account for most of Carbide’s agricultural products.

All of Carbide’s operations have the potential of risk to health of workers and communities, and to the environment. When the tragedy at Bhopal happened, Carbide tried to picture it as a freak accident that has happened to a company with an otherwise exemplary record in environmental and health matters. But this is not only untrue; Carbide has consistently fought any claims of damages caused by its operations.

Vinyl chloride workers, for example – at Carbide’s South Charleston plant, were found in 1976 to have not only six cases of angiosarcoma, of the 63 found worldwide— a rare cancer associated with vinyl chloride —but also four times the expected rate of leukaemia and twice the expected rate of brain cancer.

Yet three years later, one of the Carbide’s medical directors said, “to my knowledge there is no evidence on the face of the earth to link incidence of brain tumours to vinyl chloride.” In 1982, Carbide faced some $15-20 million in worker compensation claims. The company was fighting them in the courts.

A Union Carbide subsidiary was also responsible for the Gauley Bridge tunnel disaster in the early 1930s, regarded as one of the world’s worst industrial disasters. Construction of the tunnel began in 1930.

Tests showed that the rock was almost pure silica, a mineral known to cause silicosis. Instead of revising plans for tunnel construction Carbide decided to expand its size and to use the silica at a steel-making subsidiary. Unemployed coal miners in West Virginia knew enough about mining and quickly left.

So the company recruited black workers from other South- Eastern States, who were forced to take any job, because of the Depression. Gauley Bridge tunnel workers began dying nine to eighteen months after exposure to the dust but the company avoided autopsies and death certificates. A US official has put the total at 476 dead and 1,500 disabled. The callousness which killed these workers has seldom been equaled in corporate history.

Union Carbide possesses four plants in Tennessee and Kentucky which manufacture nuclear weapons components, enrich uranium, and carry out scientific research in nuclear weaponry.

Three of these plants were built in the 1940’s in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. During the Second World War, Carbide operated part of the Manhattan Project in Tonawanda, New York. In both facilities, information has only recently surfaced about the environmental and health legacies the company’s operations have left behind.

In the 1950s and early 60s, processes were being developed to use mercury for the separation of lithium-3, a vital component of the hydrogen bomb. One third or more of the known mercury in the world was bought up for Oak Ridge at this period.

Carbide took no notice of the advice of electro-chemists on how to work with and contain the mercury. A huge quantity of it was lost – 2.4 million pounds is unaccounted for. Some 475,000 pounds is known to have been spilled into a creek.

In 1983, Union Carbide’s secrecy cover in Oak Ridge was blown. Mercury at levels 35 times greater than allowed by the state was found in soil. All the contaminated soil had to be excavated and removed, and a long, costly clean-up began. Shortly afterwards, Union Carbide announced that it would not seek renewal of its contract to operate the Oak Ridge facilities.

Union Carbide has also had many problems with its major pesticide, Temik. Pure aldicarb is probably the most toxic pesticide manufactured today but it is claimed that it breaks down very rapidly.

Because it is so acutely toxic, studies have focussed on high level, short-term effects, and no systematic study has been made of long-term effects of low doses. The best documented human poisoning case is that of a nursery worker in Florida, who spent one Friday spraying Temik in a cases of lesser, but still severe, Temik poisoning among farmworkers.

By 1983, Temik was being used in 38 states, and exported to 60 nations. But events in the early 1980s began to refute the assumption that Temik could not prove a human health hazard because of its rapid breakdown.

Temik had been widely used in New York potato fields, under Carbide assurances that it could not migrate into groundwater. In 1979, 1,500 wells were found to be contaminated with Temik, at levels above the state’s safe limit for drinking water of 7 ppb.

Just when Carbide was striving to reassure people that Temik had only migrated into groundwater in Long Island because of some unique features of the island’s topography and geology, it was found in groundwater around Florida citrus groves.

Carbide has refused to release to the public its own information about Temik’s health effects, claiming it is a trade secret. Other states—Wisconsin, Maine and North Carolina—have also discovered Temik in groundwater.

The problems with Temik demonstrate a major problem with toxic chemical regulation: although some testing of chemicals takes place before they are marketed, there are still many instances of new impacts on the environment or human health being discovered only after the chemical has become widespread. Union Carbide’s chemicals are associated with this pattern.

Union Carbide has been particularly lax about health and environmental safety in the Third World. Union Carbide has been operating several plants in Puerto Rico since 1959.

Neighbours of at least one of Carbides operations have been complaining about the ill effects of air pollution created by the plant. In Yabucoa Carbide manufactures graphite electroders for the steel industry. Graphite and coke dust, hydrogen sulphide and coal tar gases are emitted into the atmosphere.

These materials can damage lungs as well as eyes and skin, and may even lead to cancer. In 1978, the government issued Carbide a show cause notice about why it should not be fined for air pollution violations.

It was not until 10 hearings later, that the government fined Carbide, the largest fine it had ever levied any company. Although the company agreed to pay the fine, the problems have not stopped. Air pollution has continued, and Carbide has launched a much-publicised ‘ecology’ campaign in schools, educating children in the need for clean air and water.

In 1981, Carbide’s Jakarta factory making Eveready batteries hit the headlines for personnel and worker-health practices that would never be condoned in the United States. In 1978 a worker was killed by electrical shock as he stood in water, immersed in a haze of carbon dust, having worked three consecutive days overtime. The new health officer became so distressed with company policy that she resigned in 1979.

She found kidney disease and respiratory disorders among workers, excessive heat in working conditions, and mercury in well water supplying drinking water to the workers, and leaching into groundwater under neighbouring rice fields.

In 1980, a new bizarre health problem was added to those already being experienced at the Carbide plant: inspectors on the battery inspection line began to develop behavioural problems, and six had to be removed from their jobs.

Carbide’s Double Standards:

Union Carbide has claimed that its plant at Bhopal is simply a smaller-scale replica of the plant at Institute in West Virginia in the US. But there is now damning evidence to show that the company has practised double standards in the installation of safety equipment and in the observance of safety and operational practices.

One, the company never installed in Bhopal the computerised pressure/temperature sensing system, which it has used for several years in the US plant as a warning device. Two, the community living near the plant had never been told of the significance of the danger alarm. The danger alarm had sounded several times accidentally in the past and resembled a nearby factory’s shift change hooter.

Many people on hearing the alarm after the gas leak actually rushed towards the factory. Thirdly, the community had never been informed about the dangers posed by the materials used in the plant. Several neighbours thought that the plant made medicines.

This contrasts sharply with the right-to-know laws in West Virginia and other US states. In West Virginia, Union Carbide is forced by law to inform people regularly about the dangers they face and instruct them about appropriate action during an emergency.

Safety conditions within the Bhopal factory were extremely bad as compared to the Institute plant. The record of plant accidents has been much worse than the US plant.

There has been no death in the US plant in 17 years of MIC use. The Bhopal plant has been plagued with problems since it started. In December, 1978, there was a major fire in the naphtha storage area.

In December 1981, a phosgene leak killed a maintenance worker. In January 1982, a phosgene leak left 24 people severely ill. In October 1982, a flange broke and a mixture of gases (MIC, chloroform and hydrochloric acid) escaped, causing a mini-stampede in the slums around the plant. In 1983, there were two more minor leaks and in January, 1984, a factory worker died of a chemical allergy after working at the plant.

The Bhopal plant’s management gave little heed to safety and maintenance. Engineering control equipment had not been working for a long time before the December gas disaster, the result of an indiscriminate economy drive.

Control instruments at the plant were faulty. The MIC refrigeration unit had not been in operation for months, contrary to safety rules. The caustic soda scrubber and the flare had been out of service.

Maintenance and operational practices had sharply deteriorated. Chemical reactors, piping and valves were not purged, washed and aired before maintenance operations, which caused the death by phosgene in 1981.

Lack of adequate spare parts meant that vital devices like pressure gauges were not functioning. Under-qualified people were running the plant at the time of the December release.

People with chemical engineering backgrounds had been replaced by less skilled operators. The number of blue-collar workers at the plant had been reduced from 850 to 642 over the two years preceding the event. Shortly before the disaster, the operators’ duty relieving system was suspended. If someone failed to appear for a shift, the plant would simply run without the operator.

The operating manual supplied by the US Company was also grossly inadequate. The MIC control room plant manual did not have instructions for procedures to follow in the event of a rise in temperature or pressure of stored tanks of MIC.

There was only one corporate health and safety audit over the seven years of plant operations. No follow-up check was undertaken after 1982 even though conditions were becoming visibly worse, and local newspapers and politicians had raised alarm signals.

The only conclusion possible is that the Union Carbide didn’t care about safety, and, in a developing country, with inadequate government regulations and a relatively uninformed public, it was simply cheaper and more profitable to neglect.

Who is to Blame?

Union Carbide’s coming to Bhopal was welcomed by all, because it meant jobs and money for Bhopal, and saving in foreign exchange for the country, with the rising demand for pesticides after the Green Revolution.

The first phase of the project was completed in 1977 and the second in 1979; with total cost at Rs.25 crore. Pesticide formulation developed into pesticide manufacture and in 1983, the company’s licensed capacity stood at 5,250 tonnes of MIC- based pesticides, 200 tonnes of methabenzthiazuran, and 50 tonnes of propoxur.

The MIC plant was troublesome from the very first year and there were several leakages, light and heavy, until the Bhopal disaster. The first death occurred in 1981, when plant operator Mohammed Ashraf died.

However, the government steadfastly ignored warnings, notably from M.N. Buch, administrator of the Bhopal Municipal Corporation, who issued notice to Union Carbide to move out of Bhopal in 1975. Buch was soon transferred and the company donated Rs. 25,000 to the corporation for a park.

The warnings kept coming. In May 1982, three experts from Union Carbide Corporation, USA, surveyed safety measures and pointed to alarming lapses – water could contaminate the tank, the tank relief valve couldn’t control a runaway reaction, manual filling could lead to overfilling, the phosgene tank pressure gauge was defective, valve leakage was endemic, there was no water spray system for fire protection or vapour dispersal in the MIC operating or storage area.

These fears were repeated in a local weekly, ‘Rapat’, edited by Rajkumar Keswani in three prophetic articles in 1982 titled – “Sage, please save this city,” “Bhopal sitting on the brink of a volcano” and “If you don’t understand, all will end.”

Only a few weeks before the gas leak, the factory had been granted an “environmental clearance certificate” by the State Pollution Control Board. The Central government rivalled its State counterpart in casualness.

It ignored the plant’s safety record in granting the letter of intent and later the industrial licence in 1983, and ignored Department of Environment guidelines on the siting of hazardous plants.

It extended the licence allowing Union Carbide to extend its collaboration with the parent corporation on the assurance that Union Carbide Corporation would provide safety know-how and technology for handling situations like toxic gas releases on a continuous basis.

The Controversial Antidote:

Was the poisonous gas MIC? Or phosgene? Or a mixture of both? Or some other gas like hydrogen cyanide?

It was confusion confounded. Amazingly, even as hundreds died in Bhopal, the confusion over what it was that was killing them persisted right through the horrendous first week and after. Nobody knew anything, including experts at the Union Ministry of Chemicals in New Delhi.

At first, the majority of doctors in Bhopal plumped for phosgene, partly the result of the prompting of local Carbide officials, who kept on insisting that MIC is only an irritant and not lethal.

Moreover, phosgene vaporises at low temperatures (8°C), unlike MIC (above 38°C), and is far more likely to have done so that cold December night. So felt Dr. J.M. Dave, Dean, School of Environmental Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and he also added that while MIC does not cause visible damage to plants, phosgene does.

Later, opinions veered round to MIC. Scientists of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute in Delhi claimed that tests on affected plants had revealed traces of MIC not phosgene. Experts at the Industrial Toxicology Research Centre (ITRC) in Lucknow also said that there were “very little chances of phosgene being the killer gas” as it causes delayed pulmonary oedema— lungs swollen up with water-—and does not kill immediately, as happened in Bhopal.

Days later, opinion had veered yet again, to a mixture of both. Dr. S.R. Saxena of the Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi, who led the expert team despatched by the Central government said that two gases appeared to have been at work because of the changing symptoms of the patients.

In the meantime, controversy arose over the possible antidote. Professor Heeresh Chandra, Director of the Medical-Legal Institute in Bhopal had immediately conducted autopsies. His most important finding was the dark, cherry-red colour of the blood, a phenomenon that was later observed also in dead cattle.

Organs like the lung were also red. If death had occurred because of suffocation as a result of excess fluid in the lungs, then the deoxygenated blood should have been bluish. Though the patients were dying of ‘acute respiratory distress’, the red colour indicated that the blood had oxygen in it. Clearly some poison was blocking its use in the cells.

Intrigued by the red colour, Heeresh Chandra argued that death was due to or similar to cyanide poisoning and pushed for the immediate use of sodium thiosulphate-the known antidote— as patients were still dying.

A large number of deaths occurred within the first 48-72 hours. But, for inexplicable reasons, he only met ridicule from his own colleagues who demanded more evidence.

However, with the symptoms of poisoning persisting and Carbide’s prediction that MIC would not lead to many long-term effects looking more and more like a lie, the demand for sodium thiosulphate as a detoxification agent also grew.

In early February, the ICMR held a press conference to announce that it was now tentatively convinced that MIC – affected patients were suffering from chronic cyanide poisoning, though it was not able to say where this cyanide was coming from.

It could have come directly through the inhalation of a gas like hydrogen cyanide (which could have been mixed with the MIC released from the tank) or it could be the breakdown product of MIC in the body adding to its “cyanide pool”.

ICMR instructed the State government to use sodium thiosulphate because patients given the injection reported remarkable improvement, and tests showed 8-10 times increased quantities of thiocyanate in the urine, which indicated that the body was getting rid of the poison.

In early May, ICMR announced that biochemical tests had confirmed that MIC had affected the haemoglobin in the blood through a ‘carbamylation’ process, reducing its ability to carry carbon dioxide away from the tissues. Thus, even though the blood was rich in oxygen, tissues were starving for it.

The confirmation of cyanide poisoning has raised the possibility of hydrogen cyanide being one of the gases that afflicted the people of Bhopal. Suspicion that UCC has been suppressing information has grown.

Contrary to its own assertion that cyanates do not break down into cyanides, a 1976 UCC publication itself points out that “under thermal conditions” MIC breaks down into hydrogen cyanide.

As the gases had come out of the MIC-tank at a high temperature—may be even as high as 400°C-they could also have contained hydrogen cyanide. Tests in France have shown that MIC when burnt with air gives rise to hydrogen cyanide.

Deadly Environment:

For days the people of Bhopal were on tenterhooks. Are air and water safe? Are fruits and vegetables edible? What about fish and meat?

The authorities gave out limited information and only added to the confusion. They said ‘the water is safe, but boil it before you drink’; the ‘vegetables are safe, but wash them before you cook’; ‘the fish is safe’ but promptly closed the fish and meat markets and banned the slaughter of animals.

They refused to answer questions about what tests and when they had been conducted. The Bhopal Municipal Corporation, for instance, promptly declared that water was safe. But what had the water been tested for? MIC? Its derivatives? Its carcinogenic derivatives? What were the types of tests conducted? How safe was ‘safe’? No effort was made to take the public into confidence.

Eklavya—a voluntary agency funded by the Madhya Pradesh government to promote science education in village schools—immediately took steps to organise tests of air, water, plant, flour and charcoal samples, emphasising the people’s right to know.

But it soon came up against the fact that most scientific laboratories are controlled by the government and only an occasional scientist was prepared to help. Tests, therefore, had to be conducted in various parts of the country.

Government reports came out slowly. A team from the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), which arrived in Bhopal on December 11, found that animals had died within 3 minutes of inhaling the gas.

They were frothing from the mouth, full of tears and breathless; many cows miscarried. “In clinically ill animals,” reported the team, “there was an immediate drying of milk after exposure and milk production came down from about 8 kg to 10 kg per day to 0.5 kg to nil.”

Official records put the number of dead animals—cattle, goats, sheep and so on—at 1,047, while about 7,000 received therapeutic care. Poultry, it seems was relatively less affected, for inexplicable reasons.

Samples of fish, plankton and water were taken from 15 locations. Bhopal is famous for its lakes. As fish in affected areas were found to be suffering from anaemia, the ICAR scientists felt that further studies were required and have since been collecting data on the effect of Bhopal’s effluents on Indian carp like cattle and mrigal.

As with the case of human beings, there is no scientific data on the likely impact in the long run of MIC on animals, insects and plants.

List of Plants Damaged by MIC:

The effect of MIC on plants and soil was also studied by the Central Board for the Prevention and Control of Water Pollution. The Board used neem as an atmospheric indicator because it was found to be one of the most sensitive trees.

A vegetation damage contour map was prepared to indicate which parts of Bhopal were hit by the deadly gas. The Board found that the vegetation in an area of 3.5 sq km around the factory was severely affected, 10.5 sq km was badly affected, 6 sq km moderately and 5 sq km mildly.

Leaves bore the brunt of the damage – methi saplings, for instance, showed symptoms of scorching and all the top leaves had withered. Methi and brinjal seedlings were found to be most sensitive. These plants were completely destroyed even 3 km to 4 km away from the factory.

Even after eight days, none of the methi and spinach plants examined showed any signs of recuperation. Other severely damaged plants were castor, neem, karanja and ber, whose leaves were completely bleached, curled up and were falling. The scientists found that there had been instant death in the exposed tissues.

Interestingly, the same species of plants which were otherwise badly affected were unharmed when found growing near lakes, which probably shows that water, had a scavenging effect. It was claimed that the lakes had prevented the MIC from creating an even more widespread havoc.

As a precaution, the Board’s team suggested that the consumption of fruit from trees in affected localities—specially ber, mango, papaya and tamarind—should be avoided for at least a season.

A team of scientists from the Banaras Hindu University also warned the people of Bhopal against consuming locally grown vegetables till after the monsoon as these had shown genetic defects. MIC seems to have acted as a mutagen. They advocated the destruction of all standing crops and to keep the land fallow till after the monsoon.

These scientists also found that several wild plants were less damaged than cultivated plants. Plants submerged in water escaped the wrath of the gas while leaves of floating plants got scorched.

Many birds escaped death presumably because of their habit of pushing their beaks inside their feathers while asleep. A health department official even reported a bright side to the disaster. Gas-affected areas recorded a reduction in malaria incidence since mosquito breeding grounds have apparently been affected by MIC.

The Breathless Aftermath:

Carbide’s constant refrain from day one was that MIC cannot lead to permanent damage or long-term effects. Said UCC’s Chairperson, Warren Anderson in a letter written one month after the disaster to a group of Japanese protestors – “We sponsored visits by leading medical authorities here in the United States to visit Bhopal…. We are pleased that their experience in Bhopal and the news reports from there corroborate the beliefs of our own medical people, that those injured by methyl isocyanate are rapidly recovering and display little lasting effects.”

This has definitely turned out to be one the most fraudulent statements of the century Carbide has dismissed long-term effects even while it has professed total ignorance of the effect of high doses of MIC on human beings.

For weeks after the disaster, every effort was made to play down the possibility of long-term effects by all and sundry – by Carbide, by Bhopal’s doctors and even by experts of supposedly impartial international agencies like WHO.

All this strongly contrasted with the reports pouring in from voluntary health organisations, individual doctors and journalists’ own investigations. Voluntary agencies working in Bhopal reported nearly 200,000 affected people and about 50,000 seriously affected.

Breathlessness, sleeping and digestion problems were reported to be so acute in 5 thousand to 10 thousand people that they were incapable of performing even light physical labour and would probably never be able to earn a living. Newspapers reported that many survivors were turning to begging.

Women were extremely badly affected. They found it impossible to carry even a pail of water home or cook two chappatis in front of the fire—their breathing would become difficult and eyes begin to burn.

Said a team of doctors organised by the Medico Friends Circle (MFC), a nationwide network of voluntary health workers, “even most children find it difficult to play or participate in normal physical activity in the affected bastis.”

The ICMR later found through its epidemiological studies that affected areas could be divided into three categories – severely affected areas (in which more than five per cent of the community died), moderately affected (where 1 to 5 per cent died) and mildly affected (less than 1 per cent mortality). Over 60,000 people lived in severely and moderately affected areas.

Preliminary data gathered by the Council revealed that even two months after exposure to the gas, nearly 40 per cent of those attending local hospitals were suffering from respiratory problems like breathlessness and coughing. Another group of patients was suffering from gastrointestinal symptoms like nausea, vomiting and burning in the stomach.

Two ICMR psychiatrists reported that in 10-12 per cent of the affected individuals attending local clinics revealed psychiatric symptoms, foremost being anxiety and depression. Many people were suffering from sleep disturbance; ‘gas phobia’, and a feeling of hopelessness.

These psychiatrists, thus, confirmed newspaper stories that children often woke up in the night crying “bhago bachao” (run, save me). As many families were finding it difficult to cope with this abnormally stressful situation in their lives they were strongly advised immediate psychiatric care.

In early February, the ICMR launched an extensive survey to cover about 100,000 people (about 21,000 families). By mid-March it had surveyed 11,185 people, of which 1660 were found suffering from lung problems, 1425 from eye problems and 5067 from both. The ICMR also announced projects to study the possible carcinogenic, teratogenic and mutagenic effects of the gas.

Plans were made to set up a cancer registry soon in Bhopal. A British expert has warned that a highly reactive agent like MIC which can react with DNA and proteins in cells, could easily lead to cancer.

There has been considerable concern about the effect of the gas on women and, in particular, on pregnant women and unborn children. In a population of 100,000 there should be some 3000 pregnant women at any time.

By mid-March, ICMR had identified 404,97 of whom had already delivered. Of these five had still births, another 17 had already had abortions, and three newborns suffered from birth anomalies.

Most of the babies examined were full term but low in birth weight. Mothers themselves were generally malnourished, anaemic and breast milk was insufficient. The need for monitoring the condition of pregnant women who were in the first trimester of pregnancy at the time of the disaster was stressed by ICMR. These cases would be due for delivery from June onwards.

Studies conducted by the MFC have revealed an extremely high degree of gynaecological problems. Rani Bang and Mira Sadgopal found that of 114 women they surveyed in the two most affected areas – J.P. Nagar and Kazi Camp—90 per cent suffered from leucorrhoea, 79 per cent from pelvic inflammatory disease (which could affect future pregnancies), 31 per cent (of non-pregnant women) from excessive menstrual bleeding and 59 per cent from suppression of lactation, which meant that infants were being weaned without adequate supplementation. And these figures were several times higher than those found in a non-affected Bhopal colony.

To sum up the after effects, a report, citing studies conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research on the medical impact of the disaster, observed:

(i) Toxins caused damage to the lungs, brain, kidneys, muscles, besides gastrointestinal, reproductive, immunological and other systems.

(ii) The number of victims increased with time as the long-term effects started manifesting themselves—such as deterioration of the respiratory system. Prevalence of TB among the exposed population is three times more than the national average.

(iii) Early-age cataracts.

(iv) The spontaneous abortion rate among pregnant women that time multiplied to three times the national average.

(v) Similarly, the still-birth rate was three times, perinatal mortality, two times and neonatal mortality, one and a half times more.

(vi) Most children born to women exposed to toxic gases during pregnancy had delayed gross motor and language sector development.

(vii) There was also evidence of chromosome aberrations of gaps and breaks in the chromosomal material.

(viii) Increased sisterchromatid exchange indicating likelihood of congenital abnormalities among future generations of the exposed persons.

(ix) Damage to the immune system.

However, studies by non-government organisations say ICMR has under-assessed the medical consequences and certain exposure-related injuries have been over-looked. For instance, the spontaneous abortion rate among gas-exposed women was several times higher than reported by ICMR.

A survey of psychiatric morbidity carried out by a group of independent doctors from Mumbai found nearly 40 per cent suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder—a condition not studied by ICMR.

Issues after Bhopal:

The Bhopal disaster has raised a series of questions – Where have other hazardous plants been built in India? Why were so many people living so close to the plant in Bhopal? How do we develop a policy for siting hazardous factories?

Do adequate health and safety laws exist, which might prevent the occurrence of another disaster? Is it true that the benefits of using pesticides are so great that its costs in human lives are outweighed by the lives saved by pesticide use?

Do multinationals operate with lower standards for health and safety in their Third World plants than in their home country? Underlying these are deeper issues, about the controls that should govern the industrialisation process, about who decides, whose needs are met by industrialisation, and how multinational corporations, in particular, can be held accountable.

Indian newspaper editorials and articles, especially the big English language newspapers, have largely demanded legal controls and regulations. They have pointed out the inadequacies of the air and water pollution control laws, laws like the Factories Act which are supposed to control occupational health problems and oversee safety measures, and laws meant to regulate the use of pesticides.

A carefully screened register of hazardous chemicals and industries is needed. In France, all companies and installations which can pose a danger to the environment have to get themselves registered by law. Stronger laws together with stricter implementation have been demanded almost uniformly.

Considerable attention has also been given to the siting of hazardous industries. Western commentators have repeatedly asked why so many people were allowed to live so close to the hazardous plant.

The area was uninhabited when the plant was built. Most Indian editorial writers also recommended that hazardous industries be set up far away from populated areas. The Central Board for the Prevention and Control of Water and Air Pollution has recommended uninhabited green belts 2-3 km in all directions around hazardous industries.

One newspaper writer suggested that this 12-30 sq km green area could “either be sold to the concerned companies at a low rate (for experimental farms, etc.,) or be kept with the state/local government”.

As far as slums which already exist around hazardous industries, it has been demanded that they be removed forthwith. This view that people, not industries, need to be removed has been echoed by numerous industrialists since the disaster.

A third point concerns imported chemicals. A number of pesticides and drugs banned or heavily restricted elsewhere are being knowingly imported or manufactured in India. An example is polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), used in electrical capacitors and transformers.

PCBs have been banned in most developed countries because they cause cancer. In many small-scale industries where these chemicals are used, workers are not even conscious of the danger.

The fourth point made is about the choice of technology. For instance, many companies manufacture carbaryl without using MIC and, indeed, Union Carbide itself switched to using MIC only a decade before the Bhopal plant was licensed.

Industrial licensing authorities made no attempt to assess the advantages of the alternative route in Indian conditions. They seem to have been carried away with Carbide’s offer to bring the latest technology.

On the contrary, France refused to allow MIC to be produced. A caprolactam plant has recently been set up on the outskirts of a south Indian city. This plant uses the same hazardous process used at Flixborough in UK, which suffered one of the worst fires known to chemical industry in 1974, when cyclohexane vapour was released. A safer alternative process could have been used.

A fifth point relates to the transportation of toxic chemicals. MIC was being transported from Bhopal to several locations in India without any regulations. Nearly 100 accidents involving the release of toxic chemicals during rail transport occur in the US every year.

Two accidents on an average involve damages of over a million dollars. Since Bhopal, many local communities and states in the US have begun passing restrictions regarding transport of substances like MIC. They have refused to wait for adequate federal regulations.

A sixth point takes in the behaviour of multinational corporations, which have repeatedly exported banned drugs and pesticides and even entire factories to the Third World. Asbestos is today the largest single cause of occupational cancer in the US, and experts have calculated that 8000 to 10,000 Americans will die annually over the next 20 years because of exposure to asbestos in the past. Use of asbestos in industrial nations has declined precipitously-in Britain, by 52 per cent between 1975 and 1982 and in the US, by 60 per cent from 1978.

Sweden has virtually eliminated the use of asbestos, the result of a trade union campaign since 1975. But in the Third World, the use of asbestos cement materials is growing. In Ahmedabad, Shree Digvijay Cement produces 50,000 tonnes of asbestos-cement pipes and sheets per year. Its foreign collaborator, John Manville Corporation, was so heavily sued in the US that it took refuge under bankruptcy laws.

In Mumbai, Hindustan Ferrodo, in collaboration with the British company, Turner and Newall, manufactures asbestos textiles and brake linings, which are being abandoned in Europe and USA. No attempt has been made by these companies to inform Indian workers or consumers of the dangers of asbestos.

All these suggestions pose serious problems. Take, for instance, the idea of siting hazardous industries away from human habitation. Zoning is relatively successful in Western countries, where an affluent population has access to efficient transport facilities. By contrast, a sizeable fraction of India’s urban population cannot afford even subsidised public transport system.

Moreover, Western cities have never faced the kind of rapid growth that Third World cities face today. Slums come up where work opportunities exist, and usually at such a speed that urban planners find them extremely difficult to control. Industrialisation and urbanisation go hand in hand. Industries immediately become focal points for urban growth and accretion of settlements.

Only an extremely strict regulatory regime, which could easily acquire an extremely oppressive character, with slums being regularly bulldozed, would work. A zoning policy would work properly only if the government could develop an overall policy for housing all urban residents. Otherwise the urban planners’ ‘unintended city’ will invade all regulated zones.

At a time, when slums are growing in most Indian cities, such a policy looks like a dream. Only a few months before the disaster, the residents of J.P. Nagar had received ‘pattas’ (ownership rights) for their house-sites. The most precious thing with which they ran, when the gas wafted into their houses, was the patta.

A siting policy which pushes hazardous industries into ‘backward’ rural areas could easily become an excuse for displacing rural people. Workers in remotely located plants will also need transport facilities.

Unless Indians want to blame the victims for the suffering caused by such disasters, the country must realise that, it has only two options for hazardous industries – either such industries are not built at all by adopting suitable technology or lifestyle choices, or if they have to be built, they will have to live cheek by jowl with people (especially poor people), in which case safety measures must override all considerations, including economic considerations. And to ensure that safety measures are indeed undertaken, the people must be fully involved and informed about all possible dangers.

Indian social action groups have strongly argued for the people’s right to know about hazardous factories, where they are being sited, why and what dangers they pose. Only when people know will there be public pressures for safety and an honest response from regulators.

The callousness with which the warnings about the Bhopal plant were ignored shows an unholy politician-industrialists nexus operating in full bloom. As Prem Shankar Jha of the ‘Times of India’ put it, industrialisation cannot proceed without Bhopal-type disasters, unless there is political discipline—and greater democracy. Without political discipline, multinationals, too, cannot be adequately policed.

In the US, questions are being raised about who decides where hazardous plants are sited. Should this only be a matter of concern to industrialists and government regulators, or should the people also have a full legal right to intervene?

Equally, shouldn’t a plant’s neighbours have the right to intervene when a production line is changed from a relatively non-hazardous one into a hazardous one? Such questions are now being asked loudly in Kanawha Valley, where Carbide’s Institute plant is located.

A prime example of a government regulation failing to control hazardous substances, in the absence of public pressure, is the Insecticides Act. The Act is enforced by the very agency—the Ministry of Agriculture—that is promoting chemical agriculture and only public-spirited environmentalists can put pressure on the regulating agency to observe the spirit of the act.

The right to know is particularly important in a society like India where most producers of scientific knowledge work for the government or the corporate sector, both of which close information to the public, especially in adverse circumstances.

Said D. Banerji, community health expert of the Jawaharlal Nehru University – “The Bhopal tragedy has exposed the most deplorable state of the community of scientists of India.” Scientific institutions in the developing world have developed mainly under government auspices.

Excessive government control has led to a political and bureaucratic stranglehold over information. Secrecy reached incredible levels in Bhopal after the disaster. Even the Indian Meteorological Department, the government’s innocuous weather agency, refused to divulge information about the weather conditions on that fateful night.

The Madhya Pradesh health department has consciously sought to suppress all information relating to the health of the victims, forcing voluntary agencies to take up public interest research and epidemiological surveys.

For the public it has been almost impossible to sort out the truth from the lies—especially the technical and medical lies-whether they have been trotted out by the company or the government. The Bhopal disaster has thus, reinforced the need—and demand—to democratise access to information.

It is clear that otherwise every interest group will try to exploit the society’s ignorance for its own nefarious ends. Only alert citizen’s action groups, armed with legal rights like the right to know and with institutions involved in public interest research, can bring order to an otherwise increasingly chaotic industrial safety situation.

The Society for Participatory Research in Asia has suggested that industrial workers’ trade unions should take the lead by setting up independent research groups on occupational health and industrial safety.

Even in the US, with all its technological capabilities, and advanced government regulations, active citizens’ groups alone were getting laws implemented and action taken.

One Down, More to Go:

The Bhopal disaster has at least spurred some State Pollution Control Boards into action. In two States — Maharashtra and West Bengal — and the Union Territory of Delhi, surveys of hazardous industries have been undertaken, generating the country’s first inventory of hazardous industries. The most interesting thing about these surveys is that they indict the country’s blue chip companies of gross environmental negligence and unsafe practices.

The West Bengal Pollution Control Board survey found 55 hazardous industries in Calcutta, six in Howrah and another 20-odd in other districts. In this list were such leading companies as Chloride India, Bata India, Kesoram Rayon, Bengal Chemicals, Titagarh Paper Mills, Reckit and Coleman, Calcutta Chemicals, Shalimar Paints, Guest Keen William, Hindustan Motors, Standard Pharmaceuticals, Wimco, Bengal Distilleries and East India Paper. All these companies were found releasing hazardous effluents into rivers and sewers.

At Chloride India’s Shyamnagar plant, for instance, the lead in the effluents was 0.4 ppm as compared to the Board’s stipulation of 0.1 ppm. Bata India’s effluents contained chromium and of Kesoram Rayon’s contained zinc. The Board had taken legal action only against five companies and the majority of even the known offenders had gone free.

In Delhi, the administration surveyed 109 companies and found two in particular with safety deficiencies—Shriram Foods and Fertilisers and Hindustan Insecticides. The administration also announced the setting up of a special cell to monitor safety measures in these 109 companies, so that these factory inspectors would not get bogged down with routine inspections. One factory was found storing 100 tonnes of chlorine and, if safety precautions slackened, a Bhopal could easily repeat itself.

In Mumbai, the post-Bhopal days were even dubbed the “chemical scare season” by one magazine. For a fortnight beginning March 3, Mumbai’s civic authorities were besieged with phone calls from anxious citizens alarmed at obnoxious smells, which they suspected to be leaks from chemical plants.

The sources of most of the leaks could not be traced. In one case, the Bombay (now Mumbai) Municipal Corporation and the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) took ten days to find an ammonia leak source – the Boots (India) plant in Sion. By that time the company had repaired the damage.

On March 12, gas leaked from the ammonia loading station of the Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilisers plant at Chembur. Air samples taken on the night of the leak revealed that the ammonia concentration in the air was well above the threshold limit (TLV).

Then it was found that ammonia had leaked a day before too. Finally, on March 14, the MPCB ordered the plant closed until repairs were completed. The plant came back into operation a few days later.

Again on April 1, a two metre long crack in a pipe in the RCF sulphuric acid plant sent sulphuric acid fumes and sulphur dioxide into the air. The acid fumes dispersed in 15 minutes after the plant was shut-down.

But only after a bout of widespread choking, workers running helter-skelter, slum dwellers residing near the plant fleeing from their hutments, and other residents refusing to open their windows for long.

RCF chairperson was at the time of the leak giving a lecture on industrial pollution, in which he blamed poor work ethics, infrastructural deficiencies, low maintenance standards, and unreliable testing systems. The company’s union, however, blamed the management for not having repaired the pipe properly when it had leaked the first time.

In April, the MPCB also released its report on Mumbai’s hazardous industries. Over half of the 6000 polluting industries identified in the state are located in and around Mumbai. This figure does not include the thousands they operate illegally. There are around 50 giant sized companies in Mumbai, which handle or manufacture hazardous chemicals including MIC.

The Environmental Safety Committee set up by the MPCB under R.K. Garg of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre surveyed 15 major industrial units. Its report was definitely sobering.

Almost every factory it inspected was deficient in safety measures. Except for Calico Chemicals, every company was making good profits consistently and there was no shortage of funds.

The committee reported a series of deficiencies in the RCF, Chembur factory. It found that shop floor operators were not conversant with safety devices and procedures for handling abnormal operational problems.

There was no system for continuous monitoring of hazardous chemicals like ammonia, carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide. A number of safety valves and level and pressure indicators were found to be corroded. The committee was promised that steps would be undertaken to rectify this situation.

The styrene monomer plant of Polychem Ltd. in Chembur handles a variety of hazardous chemicals in bulk including alcohol, benzene, ethylbenzene and ethylene, which are also highly inflammable.

But the company had no fire-fighting group, nor a safety officer. The committee was also concerned by the inadequate water supply arrangements for fire-fighting purposes. The workers were not checked periodically for benzene or styrene exposure. Workers were also exposed to anhydrous aluminium chloride which they had to feed into the chemical reactor manually.

The Calico Chemicals plant at Chembur was found to be a particularly hazardous place. The plant handles a range of inflammable materials and highly carcinogenic substances like vinyl chloride.

The entire safety aspect, including disaster planning, needed a thorough review. The valves, pipelines and storage vessels of the chlorine and caustic soda plant were found to be in such a highly corroded state that the plant was not even safe enough to be operated in its present condition.

Workers in the chlorine handling plant had not been given proper masks, emergency kits or breathing apparatus. The vent lines from the hydrochloric acid storage tank did not pass through a scrubbing system, as safety regulations demand.

The company also maintained a highly dangerous quantity of vinyl chloride which, according to the committee, should be restricted to a maximum of one day’s requirement.

It was also found that, in the case of a runaway reaction, the highly carcinogenic vinyl chloride was blown into the atmosphere in the obsolete PVC plant. Mercury leakage was not monitored, nor were workers checked regularly for exposure to mercury and vinyl chloride. The effluent treatment facility was also not adequate and did not operate regularly.

The Carbide Chemicals plant in Chembur both used and produced a range of highly toxic and inflammable chemicals. In 1979, an expansion programme increased the company’s polyethylene production capacity from 9,000 tonnes to 20,000 tonnes.

Although the company has a safety officer and a fire-fighting group, the committee claimed that, “it is not well equipped to cope with a disaster”. The workers were not provided with clear instructions for what to do in case of an emergency.

The treatment plant was inadequate. Levels of BOD, COD and chlorine in the effluent water were excessive. The vent line from the crotonaldehyde storage tank was left open to the surrounding atmosphere. The committee felt that the company was storing dangerous amounts of this chemical and recommended that it be limited to a maximum amount of process requirements of 8 hours.

Before shutdown of the plant for repairs and maintenance, it should be ensured that all crotonaldehyde is consumed. There was no monitoring arrangements for toxic chemicals like crotonaldehyde and benzene in the atmosphere and fire-fighting arrangements were also inadequate.

The Hindustan Petroleum plant at Chembur was found to have a crude oil processing capacity of five million tonnes a year. The plant emitted 36 tonnes of sulphur dioxide and 76 tonnes of carbon monoxide every day.

The committee felt that not only should these emissions be monitored regularly, but they should also be reduced as they are inordinately high. The oleum storage tank opened out into the atmosphere without an absorption system and there was no dike wall to prevent the spreading of the acid in case of leakage. Leakage of phenol in the coolant water was also not being monitored adequately.

The Bharat Petroleum Corporation refinery at Chembur processes another 6 million tonnes of crude oil every year. Apart from 3.5 million tonnes of crude oil, which are stored at any given time in the refinery, constituting the biggest fire hazard in the area, the natural gas and petroleum products that are produced here are all highly inflammable.

The committee found that the refinery’s wastewater treatment plant was not functioning to the mark and both sulphur dioxide and carbon monoxide emissions to the atmosphere were very high. Air and water discharges and their sources were not being regularly monitored for pollutant levels. The scrubber vent on the tetraethyl lead storage tank was also inadequate.

The five electricity generating units of the Tata Electric Company (837.5 mw total) are located in the congested Trombay area. This company at the time accounted for nearly 70 per cent of the nitric oxide released in Chembur. Neither the releases of sulphur dioxide and nitric oxide nor the temperature of the wastewater at the discharge point were being monitored continuously.

The Ahmed Oil Mills situated in the densely populated and residential Grant Road area produces hundred tonnes of edible oil every day. The BOD in the effluent water and the sulphur dioxide emissions to the atmosphere were very high.

There was so system for monitoring the plant’s effluents. It did not have an effluent treatment plant either. There was no safety training for the workers, nor was there a fire and safety officer.

Hydrogen has been stored in a partially open, congested place and no permission had been taken from the explosive department. The company did not have any provision for control of ammonia in case of leakage.

The Bombay Soap Factory, situated next to the Ahmed Oil Mills, also has no effluent treatment plant, despite being located in a densely populated area. The BOD, COD and chlorine levels in the effluent water were very high compared to the set standards.

There was no separate fire-fighting group. The committee noted that the company has a casual approach to safety aspects. Hexane, a dangerous chemical, was stored in large amounts even when the plant was not in operation and the storage area was not properly segregated. The committee recommended that the plant be shifted to a suitable area immediately.

The Hindustan Lever plant at Sewri manufactures various detergent bars, talcum powder, soaps and vanaspati. This company also handles a number of toxic and inflammable chemicals.

The committee told the company that it should immediately discontinue its practice of storing monoethanolamine, a highly toxic chemical, in large quantities in drums near the plant.

The COD in the effluent water was also higher than the stipulated standard. The emissions from the plant were being monitored only once a quarter. The company was also told not to transport the toxic sludge from the wastewater treatment plant by road, as this was dangerous. Transport by sea was recommended.

Excel Industries Ltd. has two plants in Mumbai at Amboli and Jogeshwari. It manufactures industrial and agricultural chemicals used as basic chemicals and intermediates in industry and as pesticides and fumigants.

Neither of the plants had a separate safety and fire officer as required by safety regulations. The oxalic acid plant at Jogeshwari did not have any standby caustic soda scrubber for nitric oxide. Nor did it have an alarm system to indicate release of excess nitric oxide fumes.

The incidence of nitric oxide was very high in the mercuric chloride plant. The flooring of the plant was not proper for collecting any spillage of mercury. The mercury release in the effluent was slightly higher than the standard.

Mercury level in the urine of the workers was not being monitored. The committee found that in the Amboli plant, yellow phosphorus drums were being stored in a dangerous manner.

The stacks of aluminium phosphate and zinc phosphide plants were not monitored periodically for toxic compounds, nor was the percentage of arsenic in zinc dust checked. The workers were not periodically checked for benzene exposure.

The dyes and chemical plant of India Explosives Ltd. in Sewri came in for harsh criticism from the committee. There was no monitoring of emissions and no proper effluent treatment plant had been provided.

There was a casual approach in safety measures while handling hazardous chemicals. There was no fire-fighting group available round the clock. Butanol was being stored near the cyanide handling unit, which is highly dangerous.

The committee suggested a number of changes in the storage practices of various chemicals and recommended proper level indicator and scrubbers for all storage tanks.

It also recommended that cyanide emissions should be monitored and workers should undergo regular medical checks. The committee passed the following verdict – “In view of the improper storage facilities of hazardous chemicals, absence of proper monitoring system for effluents and emissions, and low levels of awareness of safety measures, the committee feels that it is not safe to operate the plant.”

The Burroughs Welcome plant in Mulund, which manufactures medicines, was found storing highly dangerous and inflammable substances including hydrogen, phosgene and sulphur dioxide.

Many of the chemicals and solvents were stored in the open and close to each other. The committee felt the excessive storing of these chemicals should be stopped immediately.

The pipe from the phosgene reactor to the scrubber was made of glass, which is fragile, and constitutes a potential hazard. The monitoring of phosgene and chlorine in the working areas was not being carried out with proper instruments. The COD and BOD levels in the effluent waters were also high.

The Hindustan Ciba Geigy plant at Bhandup manufactures several consumer products, dyes and chemicals. The emissions from the plant were not being monitored and there was no temperature measurement system for chloroform in the storage tank.

The chloroform tank itself needed to be relocated away from the railway line. The vent of the toluene storage tank was left open to the atmosphere. Acids and various chemicals were being stored together.

From what the committee found it is indeed surprising that Bhopal doesn’t take place every day in Mumbai. To what extent its recommendations will now be followed is still not clear. When asked whether chemical plants should maintain only those amounts of chemicals which can be used up in one day, as recommended by the Garg Committee, RCF’s Chairperson Duleep Singh said, “I appreciate the Garg committee’s recommendations, but they are a little in the extreme. No factory would keep only a day’s inventory as this would prove uneconomical.”

Pattern of Industrialisation:

Several commentators have also raised broader questions about the very pattern of industrialisation, which generates such a massive demand for toxic substances and which exposes the poor to such hazards.

Western newspapers have quickly reminded the Third World about ‘a balance sheet of death’ as the ‘Guardian’ in London put it, or ‘The Pain of Progress’, as the ‘New York Times’ put it. Said the pro-industry Wall Street Journal – “Of the people killed, half would not have been alive if it were not for that plant and the modern health standards made possible by the use of pesticides.”

The British science magazine, ‘New Scientist’, has been equally pointed in its remarks – “Rich nations can afford to forego a little pesticide for fear of spreading a rare cancer. Such arguments mean little in countries where thousands die from hunger.” Thus, if pesticides kill, they also save.

In any case, many multinational executives have asked, why should developed countries be responsible for controls on products used by developing countries? Wouldn’t that be a kind of ‘environmental imperialism’?

James Weeks, a commentator in consumer crusaders, Ralph Nader’s Multinational Monitor has argued back “This concern obscures a more fundamental issue: the dictating that is already being done by an international economic system dominated by the same multinationals.” In 1981, President Ronald Reagan overturned an executive order by former President James Carter to inform developing countries about export of products banned in the US, because it could affect US exports.

India’s ruling elite probably, believes in the ‘balance sheet of death’ argument. Commenting on the fact that hardly any English newspaper had criticised the industrialisation process itself, one Hindi poetess lamented – “there was no anger in any of the newspapers.”

There were indeed only a few exceptions. Said Prabhash Joshi, the editor of Jansatta – “The benefits of 21st century technology will go to politicians, administrators, scientists and so-called intellectuals.

But the people who have to pay the price of this technology with their lives, are those who cannot even get enough to eat two times a day. Borrowed technology from the West cannot fill the gap between these two worlds. This gulf is beyond the understanding and resolution power of the West.”

The Zahreeli Gas Kand Sangarsh Morcha and several voluntary groups across the country have demanded an alternative development process, which will be based not only on appropriate technological choices, but also on appropriate lifestyle choices.

There is no particular reason, for instance, why there should be such a demand for plastics, detergents or polyurethane foam. The demand for these products has arisen out of aggressive marketing policies, whose sole interest is to increase corporate profits.

In agriculture, too, there is no real need to rely heavily on pesticides. While insecticide use has increased 11-fold over the past 30 years, crop losses due to insect resistance doubled. Through land reforms, soil conservation measures, building of small water harvesting systems like tanks and ponds, planting of multipurpose food, fuel and fodder tree species, intercropping and use of resistant crop varieties, setting up of integrated systems of animal husbandry, crops, orchards and aquaculture, villages can be turned into highly productive, symbiotically-integrated ecosystems of food-fuel-fertiliser-fodder biomass, and the need for chemical fertilisers and pesticides can be almost eliminated.

In the area of public health, India’s own scientific laboratories have shown that the town of Pondicherry and villages of Gujarat can get rid of mosquitoes by policies that help the people to clean up their environment.

What is the value of dumping more and more powerful insecticides while mosquitogenic, filthy conditions are being simultaneously created for mosquito-borne diseases to grow?

But a move away from highly toxic, bulldozing chemicals will require a holistic approach to people’s problems and people’s participation in the management of national resources and generation of technology. This will come about only, as poet Raghubir Sahay has put it, with a culture of anusandhan (research and discovery) and not one of anukaran (blind imitation).

However, several commentators have been extremely pessimistic about such a culture actually being born. They argue that this culture based on modern technology is so seductive that changing it will be an extremely difficult task.

Asked one writer from Bhopal; “we may be able to stop the multinational corporation from coming in but can we stop the ‘multinational culture’? Is this not the culture that all of us crave for?”

What is clear, however, is that the Indian government has not even thought of developing any emergency response system to industrial disasters. Industrial disasters involving toxic chemicals occur with frightening regularity even in highly advanced countries like the US but they kill few people because of the highly sophisticated emergency response systems that exist, in which thousands of people can be evacuated within minutes.

Industrialisation is creating a high-risk environment everywhere in the world but more so in the Third World where lack of capital, general inefficiency within the bureaucracy, and the callousness towards the underprivileged bred by the dual society, combine to create an unfortunate situation in which it is even ridiculous to expect a sincere, efficient and concerned response to disasters, natural or human-made.

Statistics repeatedly show that an average typhoon kills few people in the US as compared to poor Philippines and few in Philippines as compared to poorer Bangladesh. Indians, caught in the race for industrialisation, can only wonder how a government would ever handle a nuclear disaster. Dealing with it may again be left to the informal sector of social work — the voluntary agencies — and to people to fight for their rights.

Upload and Share Your Article: