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Bhopal disaster
- acidburnNSA 7y agoIt's really surprising that this and the Banqiao dam failure that killed 230,000 are fairly unknown to the west while Chernobyl is a household name, which killed ~60 first responders and "up to 4000" from early cancer deaths (using conservative linear no threshold models of dose response) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam
- ckastner 7y agoI also bring up that example quite frequently. I believe that is because conceptually, radiation is such a foreign concept to people. Who can blame them, they only hear it in the context of danger (for example, when getting an x-ray) or catastrophe (Chernobyl). But they'll happily eat a banana.
- adrianN 7y agoThe difference is that a dam disaster is fairly localized in both time and space and the damage is visible. When your feet are dry you're safe. With radiation, the area is poisoned for generations and the danger is invisible. You don't know whether eating that mushroom will lead to a birth defect in your next child.
- acidburnNSA 7y agoThat's probably part of it. Radiation is certainly a bit harder to detect with our human senses. Maybe if we put radiation detectors in every home and printed out XKCD dose effect charts people could make more risk-informed (as opposed to fear/uncertainty-informed) decisions. https://xkcd.com/radiation/ https://xkcd.com/radiation/ Keep in mind that normal fossil fueled power plants are killing about 4.2 million people per year via air pollution, which is also largely invisible. I don't quite understand why radiation killing up to 4000 freaks people out so much more vs. air pollution killing 4.2 million/year. https://www.who.int/airpollution/en/ https://www.who.int/airpollution/en/
- ozmaverick72 7y agoAccording to the HBO series on Chernobyl the Russians deliberately kept no statistics on radiation related illness and deaths related to the accident. They said estimates ranged from the number you quoted to upwards of 90 000 deaths. Thanks for telling us about the Banqiao dam failure I will read more about it.
- arethuza 7y agoNitpicks: the Soviets rather than the Russians - Chernobyl is in Ukraine after all. Mind you, I wonder if anyone actually explicitly decided not to collect the relevant statistics or whether facts like that were simply ignored by Soviet statisticians if they thought they might give "wrong" answer - there being some history in that area with Stalin and statisticians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Census_(1937) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Census_(1937)
- ncmncm 7y agotl;dr the census accurately counted a deficit of millions of people, so the census takers were executed. There is no telling how many of the "before" count had existed, as previous counts were systematically inflated.
- acidburnNSA 7y agoFortunately we have dose maps from Chernobyl and have a rough understanding of biological damage vs. dose. Using conservative models, plus the medical records and interviews (WHO and UN got excellent access a few years after Chernobyl happened), we can build pretty good understandings even if census data was questionable. This was accounted for by UNSCEAR, who says "Up to 4000 may die early from Chernobyl" [1] [1] https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html
- ncmncm 7y agoChernobyl did not have a reactor in 1937...
- zelos 7y agoBhopal was a major case study in the Safety course in my UK Chemical Engineering degree, so at least the lessons learned are taught in the West.
- acidburnNSA 7y agoOh yeah, in industrial circles it's very well known. Just not in the public at large or pop culture.
- MaxBarraclough 7y agoIf I understand correctly, the Bhopal disaster was the result of irresponsible cost-cutting throughout upper management. It's not enough that the engineers know what they're doing, if it's a clueless MBA making the policy decisions, no? Especially when they're chasing a bonus, and know they have full legal immunity if they kill people.
- _zamorano_ 7y agoIt´s not. The USSR was responsible for Chernobyl disaster and with the cold war still running, it was a candy for the western media. In case of the Bhopal disaster, an american owned company was to blame and happened in a non threathening third world country. No news for western media.
- andreskytt 7y agoThe case is well documented in relevant literature. For example, the System Safety books by Nancy Leveson
- cwmma 7y agodisasters in china tend to operate at just a whole different scale then ones in the west, like take the Taiping Rebellion, by some counts the 2nd deadliest modern war and it's not very well known in the west.
- acidburnNSA 7y agoBut Chernobyl was in the Soviet Union. This was considered not the west, right?
- cwmma 7y agoI was suggesting why the Chinese disasters may have gotten less play in the west
- shalmanese 7y agoSimilarly, we have paid much more attention to the ~10s of deaths from the Fukushima nuclear disaster but somehow conveniently ignore the ~20,000 deaths from the tsunami that caused the disaster.
- anilgulecha 7y agoThe settlement of legal cases here is an example of great injustice of our times that needs to be corrected.
- aliljet 7y agoHow can this be practically resolved at this point?
- peteretep 7y agoWho would you like to see held responsible?
- croh 7y agoOngoing contamination is very serious issue. West needs to put pressure and appropriate help for fixing this. Sadly developed countries spend lot on wars but care very less on real serious issues. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster#Ongoing_contamination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster#Ongoing_contam...
- croh 7y agoWorld's worst industrial disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_disasters_by_death_toll#Industrial_disasters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_disaster... Union carbide is now owned by Dow Chemicals. Dow chemicals itself notorious for being one of the most toxic producing company on planet. Even though there is great awareness in millenials about climate change, people has to understand earth as whole organism. To fix nature we must have to eliminate such chemical companies along with nukes.
- kortilla 7y agoDow did not own it during the disaster and was not responsible for it. Your post is off topic.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y agoOnly if you exclude gunpowder production: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanggongchang_Explosion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanggongchang_Explosion
- croh 7y agoThanks for link. Chemicals and nukes are still more dangerous than gunpowder. They cause mutation affecting upcoming generations too. People die slowly without even realizing causes.
- kortilla 7y agoYou do know chemicals occur in nature, right? Have you signed the petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide, which has killed millions of people?
- arcticbull 7y agoRight in theory except if you look at it holistically nuclear energy does way less harm than competing energy sources. In terms of deaths per terawatt-hour of electricity, nuclear weighs in well below solar, wind and hydro. Even if you include Chernobyl and Three Mile Island and Fukushima. [1] It also generates basically negligible quantities of waste which can be used in different processes or safely stored underground. The total amount of waste produced so far is ~one football field. From the entire history of nuclear energy in America. Humans are constantly exposed to low levels of background radiation, and surprisingly enough, we show very few negative effects from low levels of exposure even beyond that. People are much more scared of radiation than they should be. [1] https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-ener...
- WalterGR 7y agoDow later purchased Union Carbide Corporation. Interestingly, they have a page about the disaster. https://corporate.dow.com/en-us/about/legal/issues/bhopal.html https://corporate.dow.com/en-us/about/legal/issues/bhopal.ht...
- masonic 7y ago"The former Bhopal plant was owned and operated by Union Carbide India, Ltd. (UCIL), an Indian company, with shared stock ownership by Union Carbide Corporation, the Indian government, and private investors. "
- joezydeco 7y agoUC also sold off Eveready Battery to help pay for the original settlement.
- blobbers 7y agohttps://amazon.com/Set-Phasers-Stun-Design-Technology/dp/0963617885 https://amazon.com/Set-Phasers-Stun-Design-Technology/dp/096... This book covers Business in Bhopal as well as a variety of other design related disasters (Therac-25) etc. Not a bad read.
- alienallys 7y agoA poor country like India can't extract justice from a rich one. We're the so-called third world, so don't deserve to ask questions.
- LadyCailin 7y agoSo you expect America to come in and police other countries? No, sorry. India is a sovereign country, and is the only country empowered and expected to police industries operating in India.
- rudiv 7y agoYou'll understand when we derive schadenfreude from the slow implosion of the hegemon.
- linksnapzz 7y agoSure I understand. Schadenfreude is the only motivating principle the anti-american left has remaining, after all. I just wish that, if American decline was a source of such joy for them, that they would do us the courtesy of not agitating for more work visas and American residency permits....
- rudiv 7y agoNot an American, have lived there and have no desire to return. Thanks.
- simula67 7y agoFrom the linked article : > in 1987, the Indian government summoned Anderson, eight other executives and two company affiliates with homicide charges to appear in Indian court. In response, Union Carbide said the company is not under Indian jurisdiction. Union Carbide was an American company that happened to operate in India. Indian government does need help from the American government to police an American company.
- croh 7y agoSeems like Dow has its ways to deal with Indian Govt https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/pune-protests-dow-research-facility-4359 https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/pune-protests-dow-resear...
- AndrewBissell 7y agoThe executives who decided on the disastrous cost-cutting measures at the Bhopal plant, in the face of numerous warnings about the mortal danger they posed, should have been sent to prison.
- reitzensteinm 7y agoTangentially related, the Yes Men went on the BBC pretending to be representatives of Dow, taking full responsibility for the disaster, and temporarily wiping $2bn off the market cap. The man in the video, Jacques Servin, was fired from Maxis after adding an easter egg to SimCopter where groups of shirtless men appeared kissing each other on certain dates. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiWlvBro9eI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiWlvBro9eI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yes_Men https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yes_Men
- unixhero 7y agoI always found it insanely funny how The Yes Men would create these fake Corporate personas, especially with their names. I'm sure they have complete biographies of each persona they create because each one seem well put together :).
- ijiiijji1 7y agoI remember this in one of the three Yes Men feature film documentaries. They went to Bhopal and residents were happy about The Yes Men trolling the media, if only to bring more attention to how horribly they were treated before, during and after the incident.
- Aloha 7y agoI'd note that Union Carbine paid out 470m dollars (970m 2018 dollars) to resolve claims - they also paid for and funded a hospital in the area as well. While its pretty clear that UCIL was very very negligent in plant maintenance, training and operations - its not abundantly clear that any of these were the proximate cause of the disaster - but rather contributory factors (which greatly enhanced the death toll) - its also somewhat unclear exactly how the water ended up in the MIC tank - as subsequent testing was unable to reproduce the condition that set off the disaster. The wikipedia page speculates that it was sabotage, which from my perspective does seem somewhat likely.
- hyperman1 7y agoI've seen quite a few tv shows of bhopal, and none mentioned sabotage. All of them mentioned that the plant controls, gauges and alarms were so unreliable they had nothing to do with reality. Alarms went of for no reason at all while major problems went unnoticed. So 'maybe it was sabotage' seems corporate blame shifting. It was somewhat unclear exactly how anything in there happened. That was their problem. It was only a matter of time before an accident happened.
- Aloha 7y agoIf they hadn’t paid money out to the government of India, I’d agree with you whole heartedly. UCIL, was very much responsible for disaster - I’m less convinced that Union Carbide itself was culpable even though it paid. But even then responsibility is not cause, and for me asan engineer I’m more interested in cause.
- hyperman1 7y agoOf course, the cause is important. But in this case, it seems quite clear that the deplorable state of the plant would increase the risk to the point that any minor error would cause just about anything. No need for sabotage there. Wikipedia, unfortunately, can't be trusted. There are companies tasked with bending the truth and inventing doubt about anything negative for any big corporations. And if you buy a company, you own everything, including the nasty parts of its history. I might believe that nobody from the new corporation was directly responsible for bhopal. But they knew what they were buying.
- thekhatribharat 7y agoI'm from Bhopal. Although I wasn't born when this happened, but a sibling and extended family have frightening stories to tell.
- ketanpkr 7y agoI was born in Bhopal, and was 15 months at the time when this incident happened. Our family was one of the lucky one that survived with no injuries. It was a cold night and my mother decided to close the windows because she had an itchy throat. My mother suspects the itchy throat was probably the gas (can't say for sure if it is). My grandfather recalls the next day, when went was out to buy milk in the early morning, having no clue as to what had happened the night before. There were dead animals all over the street, and birds were just falling out of the sky. Several of my grandfather's neighbors died, homeless living on the streets and on train and bus stations were dead.
- estomagordo 7y agoI always like how the band Union Carbide Productions reminds us of this horrible incident. https://open.spotify.com/artist/3R8BrrPXskPzo75iy6FadG?si=pCblaj5CRGy8QsDVOSuRKg https://open.spotify.com/artist/3R8BrrPXskPzo75iy6FadG?si=pC...
- sschueller 7y agoBayer thinks it can get out of the shit storm that is coming from their purchase of Monsanto the same way Dow has been trying since the purchase of Union Carbide but I don't think it will work this time around.