This crisis could’ve definitely been prevented.
Reporters of The New York Times started on a seven-week investigation on this “accident.” According to present and former employees, company technical documents and the Indian Government’s chief scientist, the gas leak resulted from operating errors, design flaws, maintenance failures, training deficiencies and economy measures that endangered safety.
After looking through company documents and interviewing with chemical experts, plant workers, company officials and former officials, evidence of violations surfaced:
- Several months before the accident, plant employees say, managers shut down a refrigeration unit designed to keep the methyl isocyanate cool and inhibit chemical reactions. The shutdown was a violation of plant procedures.
- The leak began about two afters after a worker washed out a pipe that had not been properly sealed. This worker has not been properly trained and that procedure is prohibited by plant rules. Numerous workers think the most likely source of the contamination that started the reaction leading to the accident was water from this process.
- There are three main safety systems in the plant. At least two of them were built according to specifications drawn for Union Carbide plant. One system was unable to cope with conditions that happened at the night of the incident, another one was out of service for maintenance for several weeks and the last system was inoperable for several days.
- “Plant operators failed to move some of the methyl isocyanate in the problem tank to a spare tank as required because, they said, the spare was not empty as it should have been. Workers said it was a common practice to leave methyl isocyanate in the spare tank, though standard procedures required that it be empty.”
- According to Shakil Qureshi, the isocyanate supervisor on duty at the time of the accident, instruments at the plant were undependable. For that reason, he said, he overlooked the early warning of the accident, a gauge’s indication that pressure in one of three methyl isocyanate storage tanks had risen fivefold in an hour.
- The Bhopal plant does not have the computer system that other operations use to observe their tasks and quickly prepared the staff to leaks, employees said. The management depended on workers to sense escaping methyl isocyanate as their eyes started to water. Thit practice violated specific orders in the parent corporation’s technical manual, titled ”Methyl Isocyanate,” which sets out the basic policies for the manufacture, storage and transportation of the chemical. The manual says: ”Although the tear gas effects of the vapor are extremely unpleasant, this property cannot be used as a means to alert personnel.”
- There was little automated equipment at the methyl isocyanate plant and in 1983 the staff was cut from 12 operators on a shift to 6. The plant ”cannot be run safely with six people,” said Kamal K. Pareek, a chemical engineer who began working at the Bhopal plant in 1971 and was senior project engineer during the building of the methyl isocyanate facility there eight years ago.
- “There were no effective public warnings of the disaster. The alarm that sounded on the night of the accident was similar or identical to those sounded for various purposes, including practice drills, about 20 times in a typical week, according to employees. No brochures or other materials had been distributed in the area around the plant warning of the hazards it presented, and there was no public education program about what to do in an emergency, local officials said.”
This crisis could’ve been prevented if management took the proper precautions. Management should’ve been responsible for plant maintenance, hiring and properly training employees.
Diamond, Stuart. “THE BHOPAL DISASTER: HOW IT HAPPENED.” Editorial. New York Times 28 Jan. 1985: 1+. Factiva. 28 Jan. 1985. Web. 16 Apr. 2013. <http://global.factiva.com/aa/?ref=NYTF000020080612dh1s000b5>.
“Union Carbide Has Stated That an Inspection of Its Bhopal Pesticides Works in 1982 Showed Serious Problems with Plant and Safety Procedures.” Factiva. Textline Multiple Source Collection (1980-1994), 12 Dec. 1984. Web. 16 Apr. 2013. <http://global.factiva.com/aa/?ref=tmsc000020020316dgcc01fw9>.
