Incident: The Bhopal Gas Tragedy is a catastrophe that has no parallel in industrial history.

In the early morning hours of December 3, 1984, a rolling wind carried a poisonous grey cloud past the walk of the Union Carbide C plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. An estimated 8,000 or more people died. About 3,00,000 more would suffer agonizing injuries from the disastrous effects of the massive poisoning while none could say if future generations would be affected. Forty tons of toxic gases were released from Carbides Bhopal plant and spread throughout the city. The cause was the contamination of Methyl Isocyanate (MIC) storage tank No. 610 with water carrying catalytic material. The precise number of deaths still remains a mystery. Besides, 2,00,000 were injured and 30,000 50,000 were too ill to ever return to their jobs. This was the Hiroshima of chemical industry. Cost Cutting, Impact in Safety:

Senior management design and operate plants to maximize the inflow of money, while safety and maintenance are given much lower priority, especially if a plant is losing money. Cost cutting almost always means lowering safety standards and increasing the risks of a serious accident, if not catastrophe. Issue raised in assembly: The issue of the danger posed by the pesticide plant to Bhopal was raised in the M.P. Assembly in December 1982. Mr. T.S. vIYOGI, labor minister in the Arjun Singh government stated A sum of Rs. 25crore has been invested in this unit. The factory is not a small stone, which can be shifted elsewhere. There is no danger to Bhopal, nor will there ever be. Equally confident, rather overconfident, was J. Mukund, Carbides Works Manager, when he stated, The gas leak just cant be from my plant. The plant is shut down. Our technology just cant go wrong, we just cant have such leaks. Economic & Legal Aspects: The Bhopal plant was licensed to manufacture 5250 tons of MIC based pesticides per year. However, peak production was only 2704 tons in 1981, falling to 1657 tons in 1983. Thus the quantity of pesticides manufactured in 1983 was only 31.37% of its licensed capacity. In the first ten months of 1984, losses amounted to Rs. 5,03,39,000. Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL), was thus directed by Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) to close the plant and prepare it for sale. When no buyer was available in India, plans were made to dismantle the factory and ship it to another country.

While saving money for both Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) and UCIL, negligent maintenance and substantial reductions of trained personnel culminated in the horrors of December 3, 1984. Sea Otter vs. Indian: Each sea otter was thus given rations of lobsters costing US$ 500 per day. Thus the life of an Indian citizen in Bhopal was clearly much cheaper than that of a sea otter in USA. Corruption in Compensation:

The Claims Commissioners continued to make procedures as difficult as possible for the victims. Corruption became so rampant until in desperation once again the victims organizations had to return to the Supreme Court. Environmental Aspects: Like natural disasters, man-made ones also seem to have a preference for the poor. Over 90% of the worst affected people were the poor living in the close vicinity of Bhopals industrial area. The first of the autopsies revealed that the human blood had turned purple red, the lungs had become ash color and filled with their own secretions. The tracheas were so dry that the mucous flaked off on touch. Sometimes the blood was so thick that if you dipped your finger in it and lifted it, it would come off like a wire. For one whole week the government failed to assure the citizens of Bhopal on whether the air they were breathing, the water they were drinking and the food they were consuming were safe or not. Plant life was also severely damaged by exposure to the gas. Vegetable crops such as spinach, cauliflower and tomatoes grown by small farmers on the outskirts of the city were destroyed. There was also widespread defoliation of trees, especially in low lying areas. An American corporation cynically used a third world country to escape from the increasingly strict safety standards imposed at home. Given the so-called new economic policy which welcomes investments in every conceivable sector, we will see the emergence of multinationals in pursuit of cheap labor and markets. We need to introduce a system of laws which will make them accountable for higher standards of safety.