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Substandard operating and safety procedures
- The Bhopal disaster occurred when about 45 tons of the gas methyl isocyanate escaped from a plant owned by a subsidiary of the U.S.-based Union Carbide Corporation. Investigations later established that substandard operating and safety procedures at the understaffed plant had led to the catastrophe.
www.britannica.com/event/Bhopal-disasterBhopal disaster | Causes, Effects, Facts, & History | Britannica
Sep 10, 2024 · Bhopal disaster, chemical leak in 1984 in the city of Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh state, India, during which about 45 tons of methyl isocyanate escaped from an insecticide plant. Tens of thousands of people were killed, some half a million others suffered maladies, and the site remained contaminated decades after the leak.
Jan 28, 1985 · The Bhopal gas leak that killed at least 2,000 people resulted from operating errors, design flaws, maintenance failures, training deficiencies and economy measures that endangered safety,...
The Bhopal disaster or Bhopal gas tragedy was a chemical accident on the night of 2–3 December 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India.
- The Accident
- A Personal Connection
- Seeking The Truth
- Description of The Plant
- Initiating Event: Operator Error Or Sabotage?
- Bypassed Or Broken Safeguards
- No Means of Adding Water to The Tank
- Minimizing The Stored Volume of Mic
- Refrigeration System Out of Service
- Caustic Scrubber
In the early morning hours of 3 December, 1984, a large amount of toxic methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas was released from a Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant, which swept over a large, densely populated area south of the plant. The cloud also wafted over a railway station 2 km away, where many people waiting for and arriving on trains ...
I was an employee of Union Carbide Corp. (UCC), the US parent company of UCIL at the time of the accident. Like other UCC employees, I know exactly where I was when I first heard the news. While traveling in India recently, I traveled to Bhopal to see the site of the accident. The plant has been idle for 30 years, rusting away, and overgrown with t...
We will never know the whole truth about Bhopal. It is difficult to investigate a catastrophe of this magnitude, and it was particularly difficult to investigate Bhopal becauseof interference from vested interests. A great deal has been written about the incident and the plight of the affected people and communities, but much of it was speculation,...
Fig. 3illustrates the pesticide production facilities at which the MIC was produced on site in the production plant and consumed on site as a raw material in the pesticide plant (MIC consumer). The plant design (partially batch) required MIC storage, which was to be kept at minimum volumes. A caustic scrubber was provided to neutralize the MIC vent...
Accidents begin with one triggering (initiating) event. The initiating event for Bhopal was the introduction of a large amount of water into the tank (about 200 gal). MIC is a stable compound, but is very reactive with water, generating an exothermic (gives off heat) reaction. As the reaction progressed, the tank’s temperature and pressure increase...
Significant safeguards were designed into the plant to prevent an MIC release, or at least to minimize its impact. Although the safeguards were probably adequate for handling typical initiating events, they may not have been adequate to handle the quantity of water injected into the tank on that day. We will never know, because all of the other saf...
It is common in industrial facilities to install valves and drains in piping systems to make it easy to vent and drain the systems and inject water, steam, nitrogen, or air for purging or cleaning the systems. The designers of the Bhopal facility were aware that accidental injection of water could be catastrophic. Hence, the installed system had no...
The simplest of the safeguards was a safety directive to minimize the quantity of stored MIC stored. As indicated in Fig. 3, there were three storage tanks. According to the procedure, two tanks should have been empty and the third should have been at less than 50% level. The actual level in Tank E-610 was about 70% (and Tank E-611 also contained M...
The rate of an exothermic reaction is decreased by decreasing the temperature. A refrigeration system was provided to keep the MIC at about 30°F. Had the tank been operated at that temperature, the reaction rate would have been much lower and the event may have been far less catastrophic. Ironically, the refrigeration system was turned off months b...
The vented MIC escaped through the vent gas scrubber (caustic scrubber). In the scrubber, it should have contacted caustic (sodium hydroxide), which would have neutralized at least some of the MIC. There are conflicting reports on the operation of the scrubber. Some report that the scrubber was out of service for maintenance, while others report th...
May 10, 2005 · 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 morbidity and premature death for many thousands more.
Mar 14, 2023 · Late on the night of December 2, 1984, people dwelling in the slums adjacent to the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, woke up to the foul smell of boiled cabbage. It was the first indicator that a highly toxic gas -- methyl isocyanate (MIC) – was leaking from the plant.
Nov 22, 2023 · Bhopal gas leak disaster of 1984 left a devastating toxic legacy, says new study : Goats and Soda The 1984 gas leak in Bhopal, India, killed thousands. New research finds babies born to...
