By: Nicole M. Miller
April 2020 - Reflections on Bhopal Gas Tragedy
My original thoughts after learning about the gas tragedy of Bhopal, were shameful towards the American company who placed their plant in an unfit workplace. From a realist perspective in terms of capitalism, it is understandable why they put a plant in Bhopal. Bhopal is in central India, so the location is prime. Also, it is much cheaper to employ workers in India then in the United States. However, safety precautions should never be ignored. These precautions were blatantly ignored because it was cheaper to do so. They also did not consider that in the area, the public heath infrastructure was poor and even something as simple as tap water was only available a few hours of the day [1].
The night before the accident, there was a small leak of MIC and pressure was increasing in the storage tank and the vent gas scrubber (that neutralizes toxic discharge) was turned off for three weeks. Not only that but, the refrigeration unit was also shut off, so pressure and heat continued to build up in the tank, and the gas flare safety system was also shut off for three months. After I learned about this, I understood that it was out of money saving tendencies as to why the safety precautions were shut off and ignored. According to Broughton (2005), “the facility continued to operate with safety equipment and procedures far below the standards found in its sister plant in Institute, West Virginia” [1]. This was because local workers were instructed to prepare the plant for selling (due to lack of profit), but no one would purchase it.
The reason why the safety precautions were ignored was the company was performing bad in terms of finance so they could not afford to keep them up and running. I believe that if money was the issue, they should have stopped production all together instead of continuing production and just simply ignoring safety precautions. However, the city of Bhopal had to suffer the consequences, which is simply not fair. India and the United States had business treaties in which were guaranteed but violated in Bhopal [2]. It is important to try to look at tragedies like these as warnings in order to prevent it from happening again. This event could have been a hard lesson learned for the UCC, however it appeared to me that they tried to ignore the problem rather than learn from it. They took no responsibility and they withheld information from the public. The entire process was delayed because the case went back and forth between courts of India and the United States. To this date, there is no released information on what was exactly leaked from the factory in December [1].
A survivor-activist Rashida Bi summarized his opinion on the situation in Bhopal by stating, “Those who died while asleep on Dec 2, 1984, were lucky. Those who survived are dying bit by bit every day. We are being treated as if we are culprits” [2]. Overall, I believe that the UCC is to blame for this tragedy. It is a hard lesson learnt and justice has yet to be served. The path of industrialization (especially in developing countries) is a difficult path. By this I mean, businesses have to make sacrifices and learn from mistakes. This tragedy can be looked at as insight gained in terms of not letting something like this happen again.
Sources:
[1] Broughton E. (2005) “The Bhopal disaster and its aftermath: a review.” Environmental Health, 4 (6). DOI: 10.1186/1476-069X-4-6 Link
[2] Sharma, D.C. (2005) “Bhopal 20 Years On” The Lancet, 08 January 2005 Link
April 2020 - Reflections on Bhopal Gas Tragedy
My original thoughts after learning about the gas tragedy of Bhopal, were shameful towards the American company who placed their plant in an unfit workplace. From a realist perspective in terms of capitalism, it is understandable why they put a plant in Bhopal. Bhopal is in central India, so the location is prime. Also, it is much cheaper to employ workers in India then in the United States. However, safety precautions should never be ignored. These precautions were blatantly ignored because it was cheaper to do so. They also did not consider that in the area, the public heath infrastructure was poor and even something as simple as tap water was only available a few hours of the day [1].
The night before the accident, there was a small leak of MIC and pressure was increasing in the storage tank and the vent gas scrubber (that neutralizes toxic discharge) was turned off for three weeks. Not only that but, the refrigeration unit was also shut off, so pressure and heat continued to build up in the tank, and the gas flare safety system was also shut off for three months. After I learned about this, I understood that it was out of money saving tendencies as to why the safety precautions were shut off and ignored. According to Broughton (2005), “the facility continued to operate with safety equipment and procedures far below the standards found in its sister plant in Institute, West Virginia” [1]. This was because local workers were instructed to prepare the plant for selling (due to lack of profit), but no one would purchase it.
The reason why the safety precautions were ignored was the company was performing bad in terms of finance so they could not afford to keep them up and running. I believe that if money was the issue, they should have stopped production all together instead of continuing production and just simply ignoring safety precautions. However, the city of Bhopal had to suffer the consequences, which is simply not fair. India and the United States had business treaties in which were guaranteed but violated in Bhopal [2]. It is important to try to look at tragedies like these as warnings in order to prevent it from happening again. This event could have been a hard lesson learned for the UCC, however it appeared to me that they tried to ignore the problem rather than learn from it. They took no responsibility and they withheld information from the public. The entire process was delayed because the case went back and forth between courts of India and the United States. To this date, there is no released information on what was exactly leaked from the factory in December [1].
 | ||
| A section of the UCC plant (Bhopal, India) several decades after the disaster (Source: Simone.lippi at it.wikipedia / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0) |
A survivor-activist Rashida Bi summarized his opinion on the situation in Bhopal by stating, “Those who died while asleep on Dec 2, 1984, were lucky. Those who survived are dying bit by bit every day. We are being treated as if we are culprits” [2]. Overall, I believe that the UCC is to blame for this tragedy. It is a hard lesson learnt and justice has yet to be served. The path of industrialization (especially in developing countries) is a difficult path. By this I mean, businesses have to make sacrifices and learn from mistakes. This tragedy can be looked at as insight gained in terms of not letting something like this happen again.
Sources:
[1] Broughton E. (2005) “The Bhopal disaster and its aftermath: a review.” Environmental Health, 4 (6). DOI: 10.1186/1476-069X-4-6 Link
[2] Sharma, D.C. (2005) “Bhopal 20 Years On” The Lancet, 08 January 2005 Link
No comments:
Post a Comment