On the night of December 2 to 3, 1984, one of the worst industrial disasters in history occurred in Bhopal, a city in central India, causing the death of some 7,000 people.
This Monday, India celebrates a sad anniversary. Forty years ago, on the night of December 2 to 3, 1984, one of the worst industrial disasters in history occurred in Bhopal, a city in central India.
That day, a factory of a subsidiary of the American firm, Union Carbide, producer of chemicals including pesticides, exploded.
Forty tonnes of methyl isocyanate, an organic compound dangerous to health due to its toxicity and irritant power, spread through the air.
If the causes of this accident remain difficult to elucidate, it all started around 9:15 p.m., when an operator and his foreman left a large water pipe open after cleaning it.
accustomed to dysfunctions
When the night shift arrived at 11 p.m., a controller noted that the pressure of tank 610, filled with water, was abnormally high but, accustomed to the malfunctions of the control devices, he did not report the 'anomaly.
An hour passes and the pressure continues to increase. Around midnight, the controller, worried about the state of the tank, finally decided to call his department head, who arrived on site. Toxic gas leaks had already started: the alarm sounded at 1 a.m. throughout the city.
After minutes of handling, the safety valve of silo 610 is closed. Immediately, the factory director alerted the police. While most of the population sleeps, a toxic cloud spreads over 25 km2.
360,000 patients
The factory workers, suffering from stinging eyes – leading to blindness in most cases – fled to the slums of Bhopal. At the time of the incident, panic gripped the surrounding area and hundreds of thousands of people could no longer escape the toxic gases.
The city's approximately 300 doctors, not trained to treat symptoms caused by methyl isocyanate, had been mobilized, often in vain.
Several thousand people – around 7,500 – died. The death toll in subsequent years rose to 15,000, according to Indian government estimates. To date, around 360,000 people have been affected to varying degrees (lung infections, partial or permanent disabilities, blindness, etc.) by the disaster.
On December 6, Carbide CEO Warren Anderson visited India. Accused of “death by negligence”, the American businessman is placed under arrest then released on bail before being deported. He will never appear before the Bhopal Judicial Court – from 2003 to 2008, the United States always refused to extradite him. Warren Anderson died on September 29, 2014, in Florida, United States, without ever having been tried.
