Bhopal is the capital state of the state Madhya Pradesh, which is located at the center of India. It is mostly a jungle region filled with fifty-five million people. Bhopal was city full of hills and valleys, and it was occupied by nine hundred thousand people. It was greatly over populated, and was always crowded and polluted.
Union Carbide is a corporation that produces chemicals and was first incorporated in India in 1940 when it began producing batteries in eastern India. It employed over ten thousand people. In 1969, Union Carbide build it’s 14th chemical plant in Bhopal, at the very edge of the city. The Bhopal plant imported and distributed pesticides and fertilizers in India and East Asia. This means that highly toxic substances would be produced on the premises. Many of the Local indian leaders objected to the building of this plant, fearful that a chemical accident could wipe out the large population living in the slums.
Eventually, the plant was built, and the objections were overruled. The Majority of Bhopal’s residents did not mind the pant but did not quite understand the risks and possibilities of this chemical plant. Over the course of 15, there were many minor accidents, deaths and injuries, yet they were all overlooked by the people of Bhopal.
On December 2,1984, a large tank of MIC (Methyl Isocyanate), which is an intermediate chemical in the production of carbonate pesticides (used in rubbers and adhesives) had begun to boil and and had burned through the concrete of the tank. Most employees ran for their lives, trying to escape the deadly fumes. The plant’s five major backup systems all failed, due to malfunctions and unpreparedness. Alarms rang throughout the entire city, and everyone began to flee. The deadly cloud followed them throughout the city, people trampled whatever got in the way, those who fell were kicked aside or stepped on. Most were blinded from the irritation in their eyes and could not see a thing. Everyone began to run south, and that was the direction that the wind was blowing in, so the fumes followed them, claiming thousands of lives in the process.
Three days later, it was announced that there were approximately 7,000 deaths from the deadly gas, and over twenty thousand injuries from the gas and from the violent run that occurred . Overtime, many others died from corrupted lungs from the toxic fumes.
Yet 31 years later, Bhopal is still in danger, and people are still getting sick, due to the pesticides that seeped into the surrounding lakes during the gas leak. People who are continuously exposed to the water in Bhopal for a long period of time are shown to develop lung-related illnesses such as pulmonary or lung edema, bronchial pneumonia, and different cancers. That was the long term effect of the Bhopal gas leak.
Citations:
Diamond, Arthur. The Bhopal Chemical Leak. 1st ed. Vol. 1. San Diego, California: Lucent, 1990. 64. Print.
Mukherjee, Suroopa, and Raghu Rai. Bhopal Gas Tragedy: The Worst Industrial Disaster in Human History, a Book for Young People. Chennai: Tulika, 2002. Print.
Pesticides in Water 