The Bhopal accident

An analysis of the Bhopal accident

“…Emphasis was on component safety; 0 Decision to store MIC in large scale, while laree scale v storage is not permitted in many countries (Gladwin 1985). Storing 55 tonnes of MIC, while daily usage s10 s11 s12 S13 S14 S15 S16 S17 S18 Even after six accidents (three were toxic spills) safety was not improved (Bowonder 1985). In hazardous facilities 'near misses' or minor accidents should be thoroughly investigated (Kletz 1985a, Lees 1982, Lees 1985; Carrying out plant modifications (Technica 1985) in hazardous facilities without hazard and operability studies; Decision to reduce operating and maintenance staff in the MIC plant and control room; Neglecting the warning of the factory inspector in 1981 that washing MIC lines without slip blinds can cause serious accidents; Reliance on inexperienced operators; Transfer of the specially trained person to a non MIC facility; Though the UCC Headquarters had earlier sent a telex (Ramaseshan 1984(Ramaseshan , 1985 to Bhopal asking for a cyanide antidote to be given, when the seriousness of the situation was known, they retracted from this Not having an emergency plan for the city; Information on wind movement was not disseminated and this caused some people to move in the direction of the MIC cloud movement; Toxicity of MIC was not independently assessed at the project approval phase: only the information provided by the firm was used; Delay in providing correct toxicological information on line of treatment for MIC exposed people; No action was initiated on press reports which indicated (in 1982 and in 1984) that safety was poor at the UCIL plant.…”

“…Detailed accounts of Bhopal accident and its consequences have been published elsewhere (Bowonder 1985, Bowonder Kasperson and Kasperson 1985, Degrazia 1985, Gladwin 1985, Morehouse and Subramanian 1986, Technica 1985. A lot of new facts have been brought to light subsequently.…”

“…The prime cause of the accident and poor mitigation response can be summarised as follows: Flushing out the MIC pipeline by washing should be a safe routine maintenance operation, but it led to the admission of water into the MIC tank 610 because of 0 partly leaking isolation valves 0 omission to insert a slip plate 0 a remotely operated valve being open when it should have been shut, and (Bowonder 1985).…”

Diffusion of Technologies and Social Behavior

“…On December 2-3, 1984, a catastrophic leak of methyl isocyanate (MIC) occurred at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal. Each perspective applied draws forth elements which contribute to an understanding and development of recommendations (Bowonder, 1987;Bowonder and Linstone, 1987). Some examples:…”

Harnessing database resources for understanding the profile of chemical process industry incidents

“…However, in the chemical process industry, history repeating itself would be more damaging to the industry not only in terms of the financial losses but also in terms of the major regulatory restrictions, societal losses, and irreversible environmental damage (Khan & Abbasi, 1999). The Bhopal disaster (1984) is a classic example of the negative impact of a chemical incident (Bowonder, 1987). This single incident has brought about substantial regulatory changes throughout the US and worldwide (Willey, Hendershot, & Berger, 2006).…”