space shuttle, space: 20th anniversary of bhopal

PERMALINK Posted 12:05 AM by Jordan

20th Anniversary of Bhopal

Twenty years ago today, at 5 minutes past midnight, water leaked into

a tank containing 40 tons of methyl isocyanate at a Union Carbide

pesticide plant in the city of Bhopal, India. Every mechanism that

could have controlled the resulting gas cloud had been shut down,

disconnected or was otherwise in use.

The result:

"The Hiroshima of the chemical industry."

The "worst corporate crime in history."

It's surprisingly hard to know what to write about this seminal event

of the 20th century. Even the above characterizations hardly do

justice to this catastrophe whether you're looking at the raw numbers,

the individual stories or the aftermath.

How to mark this day? After reading about the continuing suffering in

Bhopal and the continuing refusal of those responsible to hold

themselves accountable for these crimes, I think perhaps a day of rage

may be more appropriate than a moment of silence.

Clear your mind and try to think about what happened tank release You

can start by looking at the devastating statistics.

* Dow Chemical (which bought Union Carbide, the Bhopal plant's

original owner) claims that "only" 3,800 people were killed.

(Carbide had originally claimed that exposure to methyl isocyanate

was no worse than tear gas)

* Indian officials say 10,000 to 12,000 people were killed.

* Bhopal activists and health workers say more than 20,000 people

have died over the years due to gas-related illnesses, such as

lung cancer, kidney failure and liver disease.

* Indian officials estimate that nearly 600,000 more have become ill

or had babies born with congenital defects over the last 20 years

Or, if the statistics are too much to comprehend, you can listen to

just one of the many thousands of individual stories:

On the night her world changed forever, Rashida Bee was 28 years

old and had already been married for more than half her life. Her

parents, traditional Muslims, had selected her husband for her when

she was 13. He worked as a tailor, and they lived together in her

parents' modest home in the industrial city of Bhopal, in central

India. Bee hadn't learned to read or write, and she ventured out of

the house only when escorted by a male relative. It was

nevertheless a full life; her extended family of siblings, nieces

and nephews numbered 37 in all.

The fateful night came on a Sunday. Bee and her family had gone to

bed after sharing a simple supper. But shortly after midnight, in

the early hours of Dec. 3, 1984, Bee was awakened by the sound of

violent coughing. It was coming from the children's room. "They

said they felt like they were being choked," Bee later told the

online environmental magazine Grist, "and we [adults] felt that way

too. One of the children opened the door and a cloud came inside.

We all started coughing violently, as if our lungs were on fire."

From out on the street came the sound of shouting. In the light of

a street lamp, Bee saw crowds of shadowy figures running past the

house. "Run," they yelled. "A warehouse of red chilies is on fire.

Run!"

A few blocks away, a woman who would later become a dear friend of

Bee's was also running for her life. Champa Devi Shukla, a

32-year-old Hindu, lived down the street from the pesticide factory

owned by Union Carbide. She knew better than to believe the rumors

about a warehouse fire. "We knew this smell because Union Carbide

often used to release these gases from the factory late at night,"

Shukla later told me. "But this time it went on longer and

stronger."

Shukla was right. An explosion inside the Union Carbide factory had

sent 27 tons of methyl isocyanate gas wafting over the city's

shantytowns. "The panic was so great," said Shukla, "that as people

ran, mothers were leaving their children behind to escape the gas."

In the pandemonium, Bee too was separated from most of her family.

She found herself running with her husband and father, but they

didn't get far. "Our eyes were so swollen that we could not open

them," she recalled. "After running half a kilometer we had to

rest. We were too breathless to run, and my father had started

vomiting blood, so we sat down."

The scene around them was apocalyptic. There were corpses

everywhere, many of them children. Those people still alive were

bent over double or splayed on the ground, retching uncontrollably

or frothing at the mouth. Some had lost control of their bowels,

and feces streamed down their legs.

Exactly how many people died that night will never be known; many

corpses were disposed of in emergency mass burials or cremations

without documentation. Bee remembers that as she searched for

family members in the following days, "I had to look at thousands

of dead bodies to find out if they were among the dead."

(Bee and Shukla later became activists and earlier this year received

the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, as well as an award from

the Occupational Health Section of the American Public Health

Association. For years, they've been organizing protests and demanding

that Dow and Union Carbide be held responsible for the cleanup and

compensation. )

So where are we now, twenty years later? In the United States, home of

Union Carbide (and Dow, which bought Union Carbide in 2001) we have

established the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board to

investigate chemical incidents and make recommendations designed to

prevent them. Congress has passed the 1986 Emergency Planning and

Community Right-to-Know-Act which requires companies to disclose

details of the types and amounts of chemicals stored at their

facilities, better planning by industry and local officials to respond

to chemical leaks, and it created the Toxics Release Inventory, the

successful program to force reductions in chemical emissions by

publicizing emissions data from local plants. In 1992, OSHA has issued

the Process Safety Management standard which requires companies using

dangerous quantities of highly hazardous chemicals to implement

management systems to prevent catastrphic releases.

So have we resolved all the of issues raised at Bhopal? Charolyn

Merritt, Chairman of the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investgation

Board isn't so sure:

The same kinds of backup failures and lack of disaster preparedness

that contributed to Bhopal still exist, said Carolyn Merritt,

chairman of the chemical safety board.

"Over and over again, we see companies _ even those covered under

process safety rules _ committing the same kind of management

errors, mechanical errors and process errors that set up the

facility at Bhopal for the accident that occurred," she said.

"Bhopal was not a technical unknown. It was because of failures to

maintain systems and employees not knowing what to do and having

backup and systems that actually worked to prevent this. We have

that same thing here. We investigate it every single day," Merritt

said.

Dr. Gerald Poje, who just ended his second five-year term on the

chemical safety board, agrees:

He said the U.S. chemical industry, as well as the Occupational

Health and Safety Associaton (sic) and the U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency have taken monumental steps to improve safety

since Bhopal _ but far less than needed.

He said a 2002 CSB study found that uncontrolled chemical reactions

_ like the mixture of water and methyl isocyanate that, with failed

safety measures, led to the Bhopal release _ caused 167 accidents

in the U.S. from 1980 through 2001 that killed 100 people. The

board recommended that OSHA and the EPA expand regulations to cover

chemical reactions in addition to listing chemicals based on their

individual properties _ such as whether they are toxic, corrosive

or flammable _ but no such action has been taken.

"I wish I could tell you that was 20 years ago and everything has

worked out well since (Bhopal)," Poje said. "I've seen all too

often the same underlying situations result in tragedies here in

the U.S. They involve big and small corporations, and communities

seem unaware of hazards in their midst."

Poje notes that even with the leak, the cloud of deadly methyl

isocyanate fumes could have been controlled before killing thousands:

Poje said the disaster began shortly after midnight when water

entered a storage tank containing the gas, causing a heated

reaction.

The unit containing methyl isocyanate was supposed to be

refrigerated, but it was turned off and refrigerant had drained --

so when the mixture heated up, nothing cooled it down, he said.

Pressure built. A storage tank designed to relieve such pressure by

accepting some of the mixture was already full, against all safety

operations and protocol, Poje said. A scrubbing unit to catch the

flow of dangerous material wasn't working.

A flare unit designed to burn off any toxic gas if those previous

safety measures failed also was out of operation, he said.

Workers at the plant had little to no training regarding how to

handle such a chemical reaction, Poje said. Nearby residents were

equally unaware of what to do once the gas was released.

***

And the thousands of unsuspecting residents who lived near the

plant should have been trained as to what to do when the

unthinkable happened, he said.

"Some who had the ability to put wet rags over their mouths fared

better than those who ran out into the night with no protection, no

way to avoid continued exposure," Poje said.

The Culture of the Chemical Industry?

Gary Cohen, executive director of the Environmental Health Fund in

Boston points to other lessons from Bhopal

Bhopal has rightly been called the Hiroshima of the chemical

industry. Bhopal not only represents the stark story of the human

fallout from a chemical factory explosion but offers up important

lessons about the culture of the chemical industry and its approach

to security and public health.

The sad reality is that we continue to learn about chemicals by

allowing industry to expose large numbers of people to them and

seeing what happens.

In this way, we have learned about dioxin contamination by letting

Dow, Monsanto, and other chemical companies expose American

soldiers and the entire Vietnamese population to Agent Orange. We

have learned about asbestos by killing off thousands of workers

with lung disease. And we have learned about the long-term effects

of methyl-isocyanate after Union Carbide gassed an entire city in

India.

Since the Bhopal disaster, we've learned that we all carry the

chemical industry's toxic products in our bodies. Every man, woman,

and child on the planet has a body burden of chemicals that are

linked to cancer, birth defects, asthma, learning disabilities, and

other diseases.

Since Sept. 11 we have also learned that in addition to our routine

chemical exposures, chemical factories are perfect targets for

terrorists. According to federal government sources, there are 123

chemical facilities nationwide that would put at least 1 million

people at risk if they accidentally exploded or were attacked by

terrorists. Some of these chemical factories are located in major

cities. Yet the chemical industry continues to resist any

meaningful regulation that would require them to replace the most

dangerous chemicals with safer alternatives.

Bhopal Today

Meanwhile, in India thousands of demonstrators are planning a march

and public meeting

Thousands of demonstrators planned to march through the main

streets of Bhopal, the capital of the state of Madhya Pradesh, on

Friday before holding a public meeting outside the abandoned Union

Carbide plant.

U.S. chemical company Union Carbide Corp., which was bought by

Michigan-based Dow Chemical Co. in 2001, paid $470 million in

compensation under a settlement with India's government in 1989.

But only part of that amount has reached the victims.

"We will burn effigies of Union Carbide and Dow Chemical to voice

our protest. These two companies have betrayed the victims of

Bhopal," said Rashida Bee, a disaster survivor who heads a women

victims' group.

Bee said the protesters would conclude Friday's rally with a mass

pledge to keep up the fight until victims' demands for

compensation, medical care and rehabilitation are met.

The protesters also called on Dow Chemical to clean up the plant

site, where rusted pipes and pesticide storage tanks have collapsed

or ruptured in the years since the plant was abandoned after the

disaster.

A Second Disaster Brews

Twenty years later later, the site still hasn't been cleaned up and

Bhopal residents continue to sicken due to contaminated water and air:

Two decades later, studies show a second poisonous onslaught brews

underground.

The warm rain of 20 monsoon seasons has washed an assortment of

toxics left at the decaying Carbide factory into the groundwater of

the same slums that bore the brunt of the gas leak, according to

government and independent studies. Lawsuits aimed at getting the

site cleaned up, and compensation to victims of the contamination,

continue to inch through Indian and U.S. courts.

On a recent afternoon in Atal Ayub Nagar, a polluted slum, a circle

of women waited their turns to fill plastic jugs at a well, while

two grimy boys hunched shin-deep in a tiny black pond fished out

discarded food. Studies have shown the neighborhood's water

contains a mix of such poisons as lead and mercury and volatile

organic compounds known to attack the liver, kidney and nervous

system.

Inam Ullah, crouching on the porch of his burlap-roofed hut, says

his body has shrunk by 30 pounds since he moved to the area 12

years ago. A searing pain in his stomach finally sapped the

strength he needed to push his vegetable cart, so the 50-year-old

was forced to pull his two boys from school and put them to work as

day laborers.

He says he believes it is the water that plagues his stomach and

killed his wife last year.

"My wife has died," says Ullah, his dark eyes glassy. "We will die

also."

Bhopal, a city of more than one million once famed for its

glistening lakes and jungles, as well as the resplendent

Taj-ul-Masjid, one of the country's biggest mosques, is better

known now as the city of poison.

In the years after the gas leak, as Bhopal sought to grasp its epic

toll, few paid close attention to the toxic mess at the abandoned

factory. Some cleanup was done - Carbide says $2 million was spent

on waste removal in the first 10 years after the disaster - yet it

remains today a hulking industrial sore. Strewn among the ghostly,

90-acre landscape of rusted pipes and crumbled warehouses lie

hundreds of tons of pesticides and other toxic elements stored in

open drums and heaps of splitting, white sacks.

Responsibility and Accountability

Meanwhile, Dow Chemical, which bought Union Carbide in 2001, continues

to evade responsibility for the lingering fallout of the tragedy:

Union Carbide blames a disgruntled employee who it says sabotaged

the plant. Indian investigators accuse Carbide of faulty safety

mechanisms.

Carbide calls the accident a "terrible tragedy which understandably

continues to evoke strong emotions even 20 years later."

The company, based in Danbury, Conn., and bought by Dow Chemical

Co. of Midland, Mich., in 2001, says it spent more than $2 million

to clean up the plant from 1985 to 1994, when it sold its stake in

Union Carbide India Ltd. It rejects notions that the plant and its

surrounding area are contaminated.

But the environmental group Greenpeace and the government of Madhya

Pradesh (of which Bhopal is the capital) both found contamination

of the soil and groundwater, which Greenpeace says would cost $30

million to detoxify. The government owns the property but has done

little to clean it up.

In 1989, the Supreme Court of India ordered Union Carbide to pay a

final settlement of $470 million in compensation for gas victims

and agreed to drop criminal charges against the company's

then-chairman Warren Anderson.

But the court reinstated charges of manslaughter against Anderson

in 1991; the charges still stand. The U.S. State Department

rejected India's extradition request.

"Union Carbide has contributed significantly in providing aid to

the victims and has fulfilled every responsibility and obligation

it had in Bhopal," says the company's Web site.

But Rajan Sharma, the attorney representing plaintiffs in the

lawsuit in New York, said Union Carbide put little value on the

lives of people in the developing world. He said the company cut

costs in India and did not observe the same safety standards it

used in a similar plant in Virginia.

Dow Chemical -- one of the world's largest chemical manufacturers,

which recently posted quarterly sales of $10 billion -- says the

responsibility for Bhopal now falls to the Madhya Pradesh

government.

"Bhopal is the worst corporate crime in history," Sarangi said.

"Bhopal sent an ominous message that foreign corporations can come

in and get away with whatever they can. Dow Chemical should face

trial in India."

Cohen, of the Environmental Health Fund, said the United States

would never allow a foreign company to get away with a Bhopal on

American soil.

"Bhopal is etched in people's memories the way 9/11 is etched in

people's memories in New York," Cohen said. "If you go to New York

today, people are going on with their lives . . . but you know

ground zero is still there. The difference is ground zero was

cleaned up in nine months. Union Carbide is as it was."

Victims of the gas leak are still awaiting their due. Because of

legal maneuvering and what Cohen calls the "Kafkaesque" Indian

bureaucracy, only part of the $470 million paid by Union Carbide

has gone to the people who need it.

The rest has been sitting in a government bank, accruing interest.

It is now worth $330 million.

Even Amnesty International has come out with a major report, called

Clouds of Injustice, emphasizing the the massive violation of human

rights -- taking away peoples lives and health -- and charging Union

Carbide with ignoring basic safety precautions and avoiding legal and

financial responsibility.

As environmental journalist Mark Hertgaard describes it:

Amnesty International has urged Dow Chemical, as Union Carbide's

new corporate parent, to take a series of actions to make amends.

Those actions include paying for a full cleanup of the Bhopal site

and its contaminated groundwater, standing trial as requested in

India, and paying full economic, medical and environmental

reparations to the victims. More broadly, Amnesty echoes activists'

call for tougher regulation of chemical production, especially in

impoverished communities and countries. "Clouds of Injustice"

proposes that the United Nations adopt an "international human

rights framework that can be applied to companies directly" to

ensure "transparency and public participation in ... the operation

of industries using hazardous materials."

Meanwhile, in Bhopal, people continue to suffer and die:

Activists want Union Carbide to release the exact chemical

composition for MIC, which they say has been like asking Coca-Cola

for its secret formula. If they had that information, the activists

say, health experts could then work on a viable antidote for those

who still have MIC in their bloodstream.

Another problem is a lack of proper monitoring of patients. It's

not there now; it wasn't there at the time of the accident, said

Jeffrey Koplan, the former director of the Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention, who led one of the few foreign medical

investigation teams in Bhopal five days after the disaster.

"At the time, people were fleeing. Bhopal became a ghost town,"

Koplan said. "You could tell where the cloud of gas had been. It

looked like fall. There weren't any leaves left on the peepal

trees."

Many Bhopalis exposed to the gas were not identified properly,

Koplan said. The dead had been buried or cremated before

identification.

Koplan called the immediate medical response in Bhopal "heroic."

But he questioned actions taken in the years that followed. Where

was the documentation of deaths, of survivors? Where was the proper

care?

"Bhopal was unique in a lot of ways," Koplan said. "After all, here

was this new, toxic substance in a heavily populated area. We had

not dealt with something like that before."

So what message can we take away from Bhopal? In a sense, Union

Carbide's actions were not unusual, cutting a few corners, slacking

off on recognized safe procedures, hoping for the best. We see it

every day, except that usually not much happens or maybe one or two

workers get killed. What we're talking about here is responsibility --

corporate responsibility, and the responsibility of governments to

make sure that corporations act responsibly. In this era of expanding

globalization, however, the task becomes much more difficult.

Amnesty may sum it up best:

The Bhopal case illustrates how companies evade their human rights

responsibilities and underlines the need to establish a universal

human rights framework that can be applied to companies directly.

Governments have the primary responsibility for protecting the

human rights of communities endangered by the activities of

corporations, such as those employing hazardous technology.

However, as the influence and reach of companies have grown, there

has been a developing consensus that they must be brought within

the framework of international human rights standards.

And finally, look homeward. The issue of chemical plant safety is

again being raised as homeland security concerns focus attention not

only on the vulnerability of plants to terrorist attacks, but at the

inherent dangers of the chemical industry, especially for plants

located near highly populated areas. I point you to a little noticed

incident last June when Gene Hale and her daughter, Lois Koerber died

from exposure to chlorine fumes over a mile away from where two trains

collided releasing a deadly cloud of chlorine gas. Sometimes late at

night I think about this accident as I listen to the freight trains

passing less than half a mile from my home. Tonight, at five minutes

after midnight, I'm thinking about Bhopal, as well.

Additional Bhopal articles and websites:

SORROW IN DANBURY:Twenty years ago, Union Carbide executives had a

really lousy week Article about the pathetic press coverage of Bhopal.

Bhopal's poisonous legacy, Op Ed by Gary Cohen, executive director of

the Environmental Health Fund in Boston

Bhopal: A living legacy of corporate greed

Bhopal remembers toxic gas leak

"Clouds of Injustice: Bhopal disaster 20 Years on" Amnesty

International Report: (Warning: Large .pdf file)

Revisiting the Bhopal disaster

20 years later, Bhopal victims say they're still seeking justice

Chemical concerns: Institute, WV, still home to MIC stockpile

National Public Radio: After 20 Years, Effects of Bhopal Tragedy

Linger

The Bhopal generation: young, bitter and politicised

Justice for Bhopal survivors This Salon article by environmental

journalist Mark Hertsgaard is one of the best I've read. [DEL: If

you're not a Salon subscriber, you'll need to sign up for a free one

day membership. It's worth it. :DEL] Update: Now available on Alternet

without the hassle.

BBC Tells of Bhopal Hoax

Greenpeace: Bhopal disaster still unresolved 20 years on

Dow in denial

Interview with Rashida Bee on the Daily Grist

Students for Bhopal

And check out The International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal.

Labels: Chemical Plant Security

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space shuttle, space

Tuesday, 12 February 2008

20th anniversary of bhopal

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