Fifteen-year-old Sachin Kumar crawls on his hands and knees through his home in a slum near the site of the deserted Union Carbide factory on November 30, , in Bhopal, India. Sachin lives with his parents Suresh and Sangita; his three sisters, Jyoti, Arti, and Punam; and his brother Ravi, in a slum where a number of people affected by either water contamination or poison contamination have been relocated.
Sachin was born with a birth defect rendering his legs practically useless. He had been receiving physical-therapy treatment and education from the Chingari Trust Rehabilitation Center for victims of the gas tragedy, however his health has taken a turn for the worse and his legs, now covered with open sores, restrict him from traveling to the major road where the Chingari Trust bus can pick him up for daily treatment.
The oldest of four, Sachin spends his days playing board games with his friends and a rare game of cricket, which he sees as the fulfillment of his dreams of becoming a professional cricket player.
Bhopal Gas disaster survivors shout slogans as they burn an effigy during a protest rally in Bhopal on December 2, A security guard stands as sun rays pass through the defunct machinery at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal on December 1, We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters theatlantic. A Hindu festival in Bangladesh, snowfall in northern China, fighting in Yemen, a plane crash in Brazil, a gathering of pelicans in Israel, a bonfire night in England, and much more.
One last look at the colorful beauty of this autumn, seen across the Northern Hemisphere. Images of an foot-tall puppet, depicting a Syrian refugee girl, that has traveled 5, miles in recent months. Diwali celebrations in India, a walk through a pond in Belgium, a glacier in Argentina, anti-government protests in Bangkok, a foggy sunrise over San Francisco, and much more. I want to receive updates from The Atlantic about new products and offerings. Skip to content. The gas leak in Bhopal was a terrible tragedy that continues to evoke strong emotions even 36 years later.
In the wake of the gas release, Union Carbide Corporation UCC and its then-chairman Warren Anderson worked diligently to provide aid to the victims and attempted to set up a process to resolve their claims.
In , and again in , the Supreme Court upheld the fairness and adequacy of the settlement in response to court challenges from non-governmental organizations. Other stockholders included Indian financial institutions and thousands of private investors in India.
UCIL designed, built, managed and operated the plant using Indian consultants and workers. With the approval of the India Supreme Court, the proceeds of the UCIL sale were placed in a trust used exclusively to fund a hospital in Bhopal to provide specialist care to victims of the tragedy.
The central and state government authorities approved, monitored and directed every step of the clean-up work. Following the sale, we understand that EIIL continued some clean-up work. MIC is colorless and heavier than air, is extremely toxic, and irritates the skin, eyes, and mucous membranes of the respiratory tract.
The company proceeded carefully, ensuring that the Bhopal plant had all the same modern technologies as its sister plant in West Virginia. The staff held rigorous training sessions for the workers, and installed a sophisticated, computerized system, just like the one in West Virginia, to alert workers to a leak.
They set up loud alarm systems that could be heard for miles, distributed fact sheets about MIC to all the local hospitals, and held seminars for medical personnel on treating MIC exposure. By , even as sales of Sevin tanked and the plant was operating at a loss, the company retained the full number of skilled workers and kept up its safety systems. At least, that would have been the responsible way to run a plant producing a highly toxic substance. Things were sunny at first, but then small accidents and safety lapses began niggling at her.
Her turning point came in , when a worker she knew well, Ashraf Mohammed Khan, died horribly after being drenched in phosgene, a precursor to MIC. Shaken, Modwel says she tried to get her superiors to improve the safety procedures, but to no avail. This is how not to do things. Even more damning is the account of T. Chouhan and others told government investigators that months before the leak, managers shut down a refrigeration unit that was intended to keep the MIC tank cool enough to prevent accidents.
One of the three safety systems in place had been out of service for weeks; the other had broken down days before the accident. The alarm that did sound was the same one the workers heard many times a week for other reasons, so they paid it no heed. Within an hour, the runaway reaction had generated enough pressure to break open the safety valve and release 40 tons of MIC and other chemicals into the air.
The swift wind that blew that night delivered the lethal fumes to an area of 40 square kilometers near the site. If only they had known, all they had needed to do was climb to a higher spot. Or covered their faces with a wet cloth. As it was, because MIC is twice as heavy as air, children were affected most. With no training and no knowledge of what they were treating, the doctors could do little to help.
Overnight, the city turned into a mausoleum. No one knows exactly how many people died that night. The official government estimates began around 3, and have since been revised to 5, But other sources, including Amnesty International, say at least 7, people died just within the first three days, and about 25, people overall have succumbed to MIC exposure.
Another , have lingering health problems. Women too must have died, young children would have died. Under the terms of the settlement, UCC continued to deny liability for the incident. Dhingra and others have been trying ever since to get more compensation for those affected, to get the site cleaned up, and to prevent the devastation from spreading.
The state of Madhya Pradesh says it is unequipped for cleanup and defers to the federal government. And around it goes. Every few years, a new character enters this theater of the absurd. His job is to make sure that people exposed to the gas, and those still affected by the disaster, are taken care of. Sarang is not the first gas-relief minister, but unlike his predecessors, he tweets, holds frequent press conferences, and loves to engage with the public.
When I asked for a meeting with Sarang, he summoned me to his house. An aide showed us into a spacious room with bright-pink seats. When Sarang joined us about 20 minutes later, he was polite and charming: He insisted I have some food and tea, worried the snacks were too spicy for me, and complimented me on my Hindi—my protestations that I was not hungry, am no stranger to spicy food, and am fluent in Hindi because I grew up in India seemed to make no difference.
In India, in those days especially, only wealthy families could afford two cars. Because he is also a gas victim, Sarang said, he understands the plight of the people in the affected communities, and is committed to bettering their lives. He immediately called an aide, threatened to fire whoever was in charge at the hospital, and told me Munni bi would get her meds. When I went back to Annu Nagar the next day, her neighbor Sakina had been able to pick up the medicines.
In a follow-up phone interview in December, Sarang told me that the pensions were starting up again, that parks were under construction, and that gas-exposed people who needed bone-marrow transplants would soon be able to get them for free at private hospitals in Bhopal. Even to this date, the company has not stated exactly what was in the toxic cloud that enveloped the city on that December night [ 8 ].
There was clear evidence that the storage tank temperature did reach this level in the disaster. The cherry-red color of blood and viscera of some victims were characteristic of acute cyanide poisoning [ 11 ]. Moreover, many responded well to administration of sodium thiosulfate, an effective therapy for cyanide poisoning but not MIC exposure [ 11 ].
UCC initially recommended use of sodium thiosulfate but withdrew the statement later prompting suggestions that it attempted to cover up evidence of HCN in the gas leak. As further insult, UCC discontinued operation at its Bhopal plant following the disaster but failed to clean up the industrial site completely. The plant continues to leak several toxic chemicals and heavy metals that have found their way into local aquifers.
Dangerously contaminated water has now been added to the legacy left by the company for the people of Bhopal [ 1 , 14 ]. The events in Bhopal revealed that expanding industrialization in developing countries without concurrent evolution in safety regulations could have catastrophic consequences [ 4 ]. The disaster demonstrated that seemingly local problems of industrial hazards and toxic contamination are often tied to global market dynamics.
However the manner in which the project was executed suggests the existence of a double standard for multinational corporations operating in developing countries [ 1 ]. Enforceable uniform international operating regulations for hazardous industries would have provided a mechanism for significantly improved in safety in Bhopal.
Even without enforcement, international standards could provide norms for measuring performance of individual companies engaged in hazardous activities such as the manufacture of pesticides and other toxic chemicals in India [ 15 ]. National governments and international agencies should focus on widely applicable techniques for corporate responsibility and accident prevention as much in the developing world context as in advanced industrial nations [ 16 ].
Specifically, prevention should include risk reduction in plant location and design and safety legislation [ 17 ]. Local governments clearly cannot allow industrial facilities to be situated within urban areas, regardless of the evolution of land use over time. Industry and government need to bring proper financial support to local communities so they can provide medical and other necessary services to reduce morbidity, mortality and material loss in the case of industrial accidents. Public health infrastructure was very weak in Bhopal in Tap water was available for only a few hours a day and was of very poor quality.
With no functioning sewage system, untreated human waste was dumped into two nearby lakes, one a source of drinking water. The city had four major hospitals but there was a shortage of physicians and hospital beds. There was also no mass casualty emergency response system in place in the city [ 3 ]. Existing public health infrastructure needs to be taken into account when hazardous industries choose sites for manufacturing plants.
Future management of industrial development requires that appropriate resources be devoted to advance planning before any disaster occurs [ 18 ].
Communities that do not possess infrastructure and technical expertise to respond adequately to such industrial accidents should not be chosen as sites for hazardous industry. Following the events of December 3 environmental awareness and activism in India increased significantly. Under the new act, the MoEF was given overall responsibility for administering and enforcing environmental laws and policies.
It established the importance of integrating environmental strategies into all industrial development plans for the country. However, despite greater government commitment to protect public health, forests, and wildlife, policies geared to developing the country's economy have taken precedence in the last 20 years [ 19 ]. India has undergone tremendous economic growth in the two decades since the Bhopal disaster. Rapid industrial development has contributed greatly to economic growth but there has been significant cost in environmental degradation and increased public health risks.
Since abatement efforts consume a large portion of India's GDP, MoEF faces an uphill battle as it tries to fulfill its mandate of reducing industrial pollution [ 19 ]. Heavy reliance on coal-fired power plants and poor enforcement of vehicle emission laws have result from economic concerns taking precedence over environmental protection [ 19 ].
With the industrial growth since , there has been an increase in small scale industries SSIs that are clustered about major urban areas in India. There are generally less stringent rules for the treatment of waste produced by SSIs due to less waste generation within each individual industry. This has allowed SSIs to dispose of untreated wastewater into drainage systems that flow directly into rivers. New Delhi's Yamuna River is illustrative. Dangerously high levels of heavy metals such as lead, cobalt, cadmium, chrome, nickel and zinc have been detected in this river which is a major supply of potable water to India's capital thus posing a potential health risk to the people living there and areas downstream [ 21 ].
Land pollution due to uncontrolled disposal of industrial solid and hazardous waste is also a problem throughout India. With rapid industrialization, the generation of industrial solid and hazardous waste has increased appreciably and the environmental impact is significant [ 22 ].
India relaxed its controls on foreign investment in order to accede to WTO rules and thereby attract an increasing flow of capital. In the process, a number of environmental regulations are being rolled back as growing foreign investments continue to roll in. The Indian experience is comparable to that of a number of developing countries that are experiencing the environmental impacts of structural adjustment. Exploitation and export of natural resources has accelerated on the subcontinent.
Prohibitions against locating industrial facilities in ecologically sensitive zones have been eliminated while conservation zones are being stripped of their status so that pesticide, cement and bauxite mines can be built [ 23 ]. Heavy reliance on coal-fired power plants and poor enforcement of vehicle emission laws are other consequences of economic concerns taking precedence over environmental protection [ 19 ].
In March , residents of Kodaikanal in southern India caught the Anglo-Dutch company, Unilever, red-handed when they discovered a dumpsite with toxic mercury laced waste from a thermometer factory run by the company's Indian subsidiary, Hindustan Lever. The 7. In the fall of , steel from the ruins of the World Trade Center was exported to India apparently without first being tested for contamination from asbestos and heavy metals present in the twin tower debris.
Other examples of poor environmental stewardship and economic considerations taking precedence over public health concerns abound [ 24 ]. The Bhopal disaster could have changed the nature of the chemical industry and caused a reexamination of the necessity to produce such potentially harmful products in the first place.
However the lessons of acute and chronic effects of exposure to pesticides and their precursors in Bhopal has not changed agricultural practice patterns.
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