Close X
Saturday, November 30, 2024
ADVT 
India

Bhopal gas tragedy: A careless UCIL, but healthcare system during Covid still overburdened

Darpan News Desk IANS, 01 Dec, 2021 12:18 PM
  • Bhopal gas tragedy: A careless UCIL, but healthcare system during Covid still overburdened

Bhopal, Dec 1 (IANS) Leaked toxic Methyl IsoCyanate (MIC) gas from the Union Carbide of India Ltd (UCIL) factory started affecting the residents of Madhya Pradesh capital city Bhopal, especially those residing in the southeast direction from the factory, around 2 a.m. on the intervening night of December 2 and 3 in 1984. However, the leak was sensed hours before with technical failure in the factory during the process of controlling it, suggests a report prepared by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and released in 2010.

What caused the world's worst industrial disaster?

The UCIL, a pesticide plant, was established in JP Nagar area, now known as old Bhopal city to produce the pesticide 'Sevin' (brand name of US based company UCC) using Methyl IsoCyanate gas in 1969. The factory had housed three underground liquid MIC storage tanks - E610, E611 and E619. The liquid MIC production was in progress and being used to fill these tanks.

Stainless steel tanks were pressurised with inert nitrogen gas, a process to allow MIC to be pumped out of each tank as needed, and also kept impurities and moisture out of the tanks. During the failure, tank E610 was containing around 42 tonnes of liquid MIC. An attempt to re-establish pressure in tank E610 on December 1 failed, so liquid MIC could not be pumped out of it.

During the late evening on December 2, water was believed to have entered a side pipe and into Tank E610 which started a runaway exothermic reaction, which was accelerated by contaminants, high ambient temperatures and various other factors such as the presence of iron from corroding non-stainless steel pipelines. Workers in the factory's MIC area started feeling the effects of minor exposure to the gas around 11.30 p.m. on December 2.

The supervisor on duty at the time was informed immediately and it was decided that the problem will be discussed during a tea break after 12 a.m. In the meantime, workers were instructed to continue looking for leaks. After five minutes (at 12.40 a.m.), tank E610 reached a critical state at an alarming speed.

Subsequently, a concrete slab above tank E610 cracked as the emergency relief valve burst open, and pressure in the tank continued to increase. It could have been controlled using two technical processes -- either to cool the tank or to pass stored liquid MIC gas to the flare tower to burn it. "The refrigeration system established to cool the tanks was removed around six months before the disaster took place. The pipe of the flare tower meant to burn MIC gas was improperly sized to reduce a leak," reports analysed by IANS suggested.

"After the failure of hours of efforts to fix the technical problem, the factory's siren was sounded to alert the people around 2.30 a.m. and employees and workers left towards the north direction from the factory," said David, (goes by a single name) who claimed that his father was one of the workers in the factory during the disaster.

By 1.30 a.m. about 30 tonnes of MIC had leaked from the tank into the atmosphere and in the next two hours it reached the nearby residential colonies and the people in deep sleep started inhaling the toxic gas. People started falling unconscious and the world's worst chemical disaster began in Bhopal, early on December 3.

"People started dying within hours. By 7 a.m. on December 3, 70 people had died which increased to 260 by 9 a.m. and thereafter the figure continued to rise," the ICMR report stated.

The Covid-19 pandemic and the post gas disaster situation have some similar problems for the doctors in Bhopal:

The situation for medical experts in Bhopal during the gas disaster in 1984 seems similar to the outbreak of the Covid pandemic in India by early 2020. The healthcare system was overburdened, breathless people were lying on the roads, hospitals were filled with bodies. A similar situation was witnessed in many parts of India during the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021.

Dr V M Kathoch, the then secretary to the Government of India and the Director of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), wrote on a 'Preface' of 142 pages reports prepared by a team of medical experts, including some from Bhopal, which read, "Helpless doctors were neither aware about the nature of 'Killer Gas', which had escaped into the air from the Union Carbide India Ltd (UCIL) factory, nor did they have any idea about antibodies to be administered. Yet they did whatever they could by way of symptomatic treatment, to make the last minutes of the victims on earth more tolerable."

MORE India ARTICLES

Goa accounts for 12% of drug manufacturing in India: CM

Goa accounts for 12% of drug manufacturing in India: CM
"Pharmaceutical industry in Goa produces 12 per cent of the total medicine manufactured in India. Around 70 per cent of the product is exported to the most developed countries in the world," Sawant told a government function in Panaji organised to promote industrial trade in the state.

Goa accounts for 12% of drug manufacturing in India: CM

Don't use the word Dalit to identify someone: Punjab SC panel

Don't use the word Dalit to identify someone: Punjab SC panel
Even the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has directed all state governments and Union Territory administrations to use the word Scheduled Caste instead of Dalit for persons belonging to SCs.

Don't use the word Dalit to identify someone: Punjab SC panel

India to reciprocate if UK fails to recognize Covishield

India to reciprocate if UK fails to recognize Covishield
The non-recognition of the Covishield vaccine has impacted the Indians, especially students travelling to the UK. This issue was flagged during the meeting between Indian External Affairs Minister Dr Jaishankar and UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss on Monday in Washington DC.

India to reciprocate if UK fails to recognize Covishield

After settling tussle in Punjab, Sonia heads to Shimla

After settling tussle in Punjab, Sonia heads to Shimla
She reached Chandigarh, the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana, by air in the morning from where she headed straight to her daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's cottage located amid forests of pine and cedar on the suburbs of the Himachal Pradesh capital.

After settling tussle in Punjab, Sonia heads to Shimla

PM Modi greets new Punjab Chief Minister Channi

PM Modi greets new Punjab Chief Minister Channi
Channi took oath of office along with his two deputies -- one a Jat Sikh and another belonging to the Hindu community -- at a simple ceremony here in the Punjab capital that was delayed for 20 minutes owing to the late arrival of party leader Rahul Gandhi.

PM Modi greets new Punjab Chief Minister Channi

Sikh leader underlines need to intensify farmers agitation

Sikh leader underlines need to intensify farmers agitation
Jasbir Singh Virk, president of Bhartiya Sikh Sangthan, has underlined the need to intensify the ongoing farmers' agitation and said that there was a need to shore up strength at the Delhi borders.

Sikh leader underlines need to intensify farmers agitation