
Bhopal disaster - williamchangnpu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster
======
acidburnNSA
It'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)

~~~
ozmaverick72
According 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.

~~~
acidburnNSA
HBO is not a great reference in this case. The teams of experts from the UN
and WHO said "up to 4000" using conservative models after decades of study.
One small Ukrainian team said 90,000, and that's the number HBO and Greenpeace
use. Actually HBO said: "Between 4,000 and 90,000", which really pissed me
off. The scientific consensus number is up to 4000.

[https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html](https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html)

The crazy thing is that even if it was 90,000, nuclear wouldn't change much in
how safe it is relative to other energy sources. Again, Banqiao dam killed
230,000 and fossil kills 4,200,000 every single year from air pollution.

~~~
ozmaverick72
It's pretty hard to have scientific consensus when you don't have any reliable
information to base it on.

~~~
acidburnNSA
It's certainly softer science than 1900s physics. There are a few big science-
related questions that require practical approaches to that aren't 100% black
and white. So consensus has to allow for a few more outlier positions than
usual.

Interestingly, climate change and Chernobyl health effects have a lot of
parallels. They've both been broadly studied by various teams of scientists.
Society has turned to using large internationally-respected UN and WHO-
organized group of experts to deal with the these kinds of questions. For
Chernobyl, this group is called UNSCEAR [1]. For climate change it's called
the IPCC [2].

[1]
[https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html](https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html)
[2] [https://www.ipcc.ch/](https://www.ipcc.ch/)

In both Chernobyl and Climate change, there are people who passionately
disagree with the international UN teams of scientists. In climate change, we
call them climate-change deniers. In Chernobyl, we call them Greenpeace. In
the name of the scientific method, it's worth listening to what these people
have to say and testing some hypotheses. If the hypotheses turn out to be hard
to support, we begin to move on with a mainstream consensus.

The odd thing is that these groups of people (climate change deniers and
Greenpeace) have very little else in common.

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reitzensteinm
Tangentially 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
I 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 :).

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blobbers
[https://amazon.com/Set-Phasers-Stun-Design-
Technology/dp/096...](https://amazon.com/Set-Phasers-Stun-Design-
Technology/dp/0963617885)

This book covers Business in Bhopal as well as a variety of other design
related disasters (Therac-25) etc.

Not a bad read.

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anilgulecha
The settlement of legal cases here is an example of great injustice of our
times that needs to be corrected.

~~~
croh
Ongoing 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_contam...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster#Ongoing_contamination)

------
croh
Seems like Dow has its ways to deal with Indian Govt

[https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/pune-protests-dow-
resear...](https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/pune-protests-dow-research-
facility-4359)

------
thekhatribharat
I'm from Bhopal. Although I wasn't born when this happened, but a sibling and
extended family have frightening stories to tell.

~~~
ketanpkr
I 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.

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WalterGR
Dow later purchased Union Carbide Corporation. Interestingly, they have a page
about the disaster. [https://corporate.dow.com/en-
us/about/legal/issues/bhopal.ht...](https://corporate.dow.com/en-
us/about/legal/issues/bhopal.html)

~~~
masonic
"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. "

------
Aloha
I'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
I'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
If 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
Of 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.

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alienallys
A 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
So 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.

~~~
simula67
From 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.

~~~
peteretep
Union Carbide was an American company, that owned 50% of Union Carbide India
Limited. The other 50% was owned "by Indian investors including the Government
of India and government-controlled banks". The legal case was sent to India,
because "UCIL was a separate and independent legal entity managed and staffed
by Indian citizens". It's still around today: "Eveready Industries India Ltd.
(EIIL), formerly Union Carbide India Limited, is the flagship company of the
B. M. Khaitan Group".

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estomagordo
I always like how the band Union Carbide Productions reminds us of this
horrible incident.

[https://open.spotify.com/artist/3R8BrrPXskPzo75iy6FadG?si=pC...](https://open.spotify.com/artist/3R8BrrPXskPzo75iy6FadG?si=pCblaj5CRGy8QsDVOSuRKg)

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sschueller
Bayer 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.

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AndrewBissell
The 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.

------
croh
World's worst industrial disaster

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_disaster...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_disasters_by_death_toll#Industrial_disasters)

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.

~~~
xyzzyz
_To fix nature we must have to eliminate such chemical companies along with
nukes._

Once you eliminate the chemical companies running the Haber-Bosch process, you
can also dispose of the nukes by using them to put starving billions out of
misery.

~~~
zapdrive
Getting downvoted because you made sense.

