

Bhopal disaster - dustingetz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster

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hugh3
From the guidelines:

 _You can make up a new title if you want, but if you put gratuitous editorial
spin on it, the editors may rewrite it._

I'd suggest changing it just to the linked page's title "Bhopal disaster"
(context: at the time of writing the title is _"1984: US company's negligence
kills 15,000 people in India"_ since, as mentioned in the article, it is
disputed whether Union Carbide was negligent. Union Carbide still maintains
the disaster was the result of sabotage.

update: Thanks editors!

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yummyfajitas
It was almost certainly sabotage, chemical plants (including the UC plant at
Bhopal) are designed to make accidents like this impossible. After the fact
investigations all failed to reproduce the alleged accident mechanism.

Also, completely coincidentally, UC was involved in a dispute with the union.

Lastly, "US Company" is inaccurate. The plant was only 50.9% US owned, and
49.1% Indian owned.

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dman
Can you please provide some proof / reference for the sabotage claim ?

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yummyfajitas
According to the wikipedia article, the various investigations (by UCC, the
government, outside consultants) all failed to reproduce the failure mode
alleged to be behind the disaster (water backflow into the mic tank). There
doesn't seem to be direct evidence of sabotage, only circumstantial - all the
accidental failure modes were ruled out, so what remains is deliberate
introduction of water.

<http://www.bhopalfacts.com/pdfs/casestdy.pdf>

Note that the Indian government significantly inhibited any external
investigation into the disaster.

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stretchwithme
Here's another perspective on this:

    
    
      http://www.objectivistcenter.org/ct-2089-mutual_plunder.aspx
    

The government did quite a bit to weaken this facility in an effort to "create
jobs". Union Carbide's big mistake was continuing to do business there when
the government kept changing the terms for the deal they had. But that's what
governments always do.

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yock
What? We're linking to Wikipedia articles now and calling it news?

~~~
jmm
I get what you're saying. But it is an interesting engineering failure story.
Was one of our case studies in engineering ethics class...

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jgoewert
Nifty... that sets an interesting precident that makes me believe the US
should do the same thing with Tony Hayward and his cronies.

