1476-069X-4-6.fm
BioMed Central
Environmental Health: A Global
Access Science Source
ss
Open AcceReview
The Bhopal disaster and its aftermath: a review
Edward Broughton*
Address: Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health, 600 W 168th St. New York, NY 10032 USA
Email: Edward Broughton* - XXXXXXXXXX
* Co
esponding author
Abstract
On December 3 1984, more than 40 tons of methyl isocyanate gas leaked from a pesticide plant in
Bhopal, India, immediately killing at least 3,800 people and causing significant mo
idity and
premature death for many thousands more. The company involved in what became the worst
industrial accident in history immediately tried to dissociate itself from legal responsibility.
Eventually it reached a settlement with the Indian Government through mediation of that country's
Supreme Court and accepted moral responsibility. It paid $470 million in compensation, a relatively
small amount of based on significant underestimations of the long-term health consequences of
exposure and the number of people exposed. The disaster indicated a need for enforceable
international standards for environmental safety, preventative strategies to avoid similar accidents
and industrial disaster preparedness.
Since the disaster, India has experienced rapid industrialization. While some positive changes in
government policy and behavior of a few industries have taken place, major threats to the
environment from rapid and poorly regulated industrial growth remain. Widespread environmental
degradation with significant adverse human health consequences continues to occur throughout
India.
December 2004 marked the twentieth anniversary of the
massive toxic gas leak from Union Ca
ide Corporation's
chemical plant in Bhopal in the state of Madhya Pradesh,
India that killed more than 3,800 people. This review
examines the health effects of exposure to the disaster, the
legal response, the lessons learned and whether or not
these are put into practice in India in terms of industrial
development, environmental management and public
health.
History
In the 1970s, the Indian government initiated policies to
encourage foreign companies to invest in local industry.
Union Ca
ide Corporation (UCC) was asked to build a
plant for the manufacture of Sevin, a pesticide commonly
used throughout Asia. As part of the deal, India's govern-
ment insisted that a significant percentage of the invest-
ment come from local shareholders. The government
itself had a 22% stake in the company's subsidiary, Union
Ca
ide India Limited (UCIL) [1]. The company built the
plant in Bhopal because of its central location and access
to transport infrastructure. The specific site within the city
was zoned for light industrial and commercial use, not fo
hazardous industry. The plant was initially approved only
for formulation of pesticides from component chemicals,
such as MIC imported from the parent company, in rela-
tively small quantities. However, pressure from competi-
tion in the chemical industry led UCIL to implement
"backward integration" – the manufacture of raw materi-
als and intermediate products for formulation of the final
Published: 10 May 2005
Environmental Health: A Global Access Science Source 2005, 4:6 doi:10.1186/1476-069X-4-6
Received: 21 December 2004
Accepted: 10 May 2005
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© 2005 Broughton; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http:
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which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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product within one facility. This was inherently a more
sophisticated and hazardous process [2].
In 1984, the plant was manufacturing Sevin at one quarte
of its production capacity due to decreased demand fo
pesticides. Widespread crop failures and famine on the
subcontinent in the 1980s led to increased indebtedness
and decreased capital for farmers to invest in pesticides.
Local managers were directed to close the plant and pre-
pare it for sale in July 1984 due to decreased profitability
[3]. When no ready buyer was found, UCIL made plans to
dismantle key production units of the facility for ship-
ment to another developing country. In the meantime,
the facility continued to operate with safety equipment
and procedures far below the standards found in its siste
plant in Institute, West Virginia. The local government
was aware of safety problems but was reticent to place
heavy industrial safety and pollution control burdens on
the struggling industry because it feared the economic
effects of the loss of such a large employer [3].
At 11.00 PM on December 2 1984, while most of the one
million residents of Bhopal slept, an operator at the plant
noticed a small leak of methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas and
increasing pressure inside a storage tank. The vent-gas
scru
er, a safety device designer to neutralize toxic dis-
charge from the MIC system, had been turned off three
weeks prior [3]. Apparently a faulty valve had allowed one
ton of water for cleaning internal pipes to mix with forty
tons of MIC [1]. A 30 ton refrigeration unit that normally
served as a safety component to cool the MIC storage tank
had been drained of its coolant for use in another part of
the plant [3]. Pressure and heat from the vigorous exother-
mic reaction in the tank continued to build. The gas flare
safety system was out of action and had been for three
months. At around 1.00 AM, December 3, loud rumbling
eve
erated around the plant as a safety valve gave way
sending a plume of MIC gas into the early morning air [4].
Within hours, the streets of Bhopal were littered with
human corpses and the carcasses of buffaloes, cows, dogs
and birds. An estimated 3,800 people died immediately,
mostly in the poor slum colony adjacent to the UCC plant
[1,5]. Local hospitals were soon overwhelmed with the
injured, a crisis further compounded by a lack of knowl-
edge of exactly what gas was involved and what its effects
were [1]. It became one of the worst chemical disasters in
history and the name Bhopal became synonymous with
industrial catastrophe [5].
Estimates of the number of people killed in the first few
days by the plume from the UCC plant run as high as
10,000, with 15,000 to 20,000 premature deaths report-
edly occu
ing in the subsequent two decades [6]. The
Indian government reported that more than half a million
people were exposed to the gas [7]. Several epidemiologi-
cal studies conducted soon after the accident showed sig-
nificant mo
idity and increased mortality in the exposed
population. Table 1. summarizes early and late effects on
health. These data are likely to under-represent the true
extent of adverse health effects because many exposed
individuals left Bhopal immediately following the disas-
ter never to return and were therefore lost to follow-up
[8].
Table 1: Health effects of the Bhopal methyl isocyanate gas leak exposure [8, 30-32].
Early effects (0–6 months)
Ocular Chemosis, redness, watering, ulcers, photophobia
Respiratory Distress, pulmonary edema, pneumonitis, pneumothorax.
Gastrointestinal Persistent dia
hea, anorexia, persistent abdominal pain.
Genetic Increased chromosomal abnormalities.
Psychological Neuroses, anxiety states, adjustment reactions
Neurobehavioral Impaired audio and visual memory, impaired vigilance attention and
esponse time, Impaired reasoning and spatial ability, impaired
psychomotor coordination.
Late effects (6 months onwards)
Ocular Persistent watering, corneal opacities, chronic conjunctivitis
Respiratory Obstructive and restrictive airway disease, decreased lung function.
Reproductive Increased pregnancy loss, increased infant mortality, decreased
placental/fetal weight
Genetic Increased chromosomal abnormalities
Neurobehavioral Impaired associate learning, motor speed, precision
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Aftermath
Immediately after the disaster, UCC began attempts to
dissociate itself from responsibility for the gas leak. Its
principal tactic was to shift culpability to UCIL, stating the
plant was wholly built and operated by the Indian subsid-
iary. It also fa
icated scenarios involving sabotage by pre-
viously unknown Sikh extremist groups and disgruntled
employees but this theory was impugned by numerous
independent sources [1].
The toxic plume had barely cleared when, on December 7,
the first multi-billion dollar lawsuit was filed by an Amer-
ican attorney in a U.S. court. This was the beginning of
years of legal machinations in which the ethical implica-
tions of the tragedy and its affect on Bhopal's people were
largely ignored. In March 1985, the Indian government
enacted the Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster Act as a way of
ensuring that claims arising from the accident would be
dealt with speedily and equitably. The Act made the gov-
ernment the sole representative of the victims in legal pro-
ceedings both within and outside India. Eventually all
cases were taken out of the U.S. legal system under the rul-
ing of the presiding American judge and placed entirely
under Indian jurisdiction much to the detriment of the
injured parties.
In a settlement mediated by the Indian Supreme Court,
UCC accepted moral responsibility and agreed to pay
$470 million to the Indian government to be distributed
to claimants as a full and final settlement. The figure was
partly based on the disputed claim that only 3000 people
died and 102,000 suffered permanent disabilities [9].
Upon announcing this settlement, shares of UCC rose $2
per share or 7% in value [1]. Had compensation in Bhopal
een paid at the same rate that asbestosis victims where
eing awarded in US courts by defendant including UCC
– which mined asbestos from 1963 to 1985 – the liability
would have been greater than the $10 billion the com-
pany was worth and insured for in 1984 [10]. By the end
of October 2003, according to the Bhopal Gas Tragedy
Relief and Rehabilitation Department, compensation had
een awarded to 554,895 people for injuries received and
15,310 survivors of those killed. The average amount to
families of the dead was $2,200 [9].
At every turn, UCC has attempted to manipulate, obfus-
cate and withhold scientific data to the detriment of vic-
tims. Even to this date, the company has not stated exactly
what was in the toxic cloud that enveloped the city on that
December night [8]. When MIC is exposed to 200° heat,
it forms degraded MIC that contains the more deadly
hydrogen cyanide (HCN). There was clear evidence that
the storage tank temperature did reach this level in the dis-
aster. The che
y-red color of blood and viscera of some
victims were characteristic of acute cyanide poisoning
[11]. Moreover, many responded well to administration
of sodium thiosulfate, an effective therapy for cyanide
poisoning but not MIC exposure [11]. UCC initially rec-
ommended use of sodium thiosulfate but withdrew the
statement later prompting suggestions that it attempted to
cover up evidence of HCN in the gas leak. The presence of
HCN was vigorously denied by UCC and was a point of
conjecture among researchers [8,11-13].
As further insult, UCC discontinued operation at its Bho-
pal plant following the disaster but failed