From the Bhopal gas tragedy to Facebook and Bloomsbury, a history of corporate culpability
What ties Warren Anderson, the CEO of Union Carbide when the Bhopal Gas Tragedy occurred, to Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, and Nigel Newton, the CEO of Bloomsbury? It is the belief that they need not follow the same standards for their business in India that they do in Western democracies, writes Hartosh Singh Bal.
#CorporateCrime #business #meta #facebook #whatsapp #bloomsbury #BigTech #UnionCarbide #BhopalGasTragedy #DelhiPogrom #DelhiRiots #WarrenAnderson #MarkZuckerberg #hindutva #islamophobia #HateSpeech #industry #BJP #india #HartoshSinghBal
https://caravanmagazine.in/politics/facebook-bloomsbury-delhi-riots-corporate-culpability
#corporatecrime #business #meta #facebook #whatsapp #bloomsbury #bigtech #UnionCarbide #BhopalGasTragedy #DelhiPogrom #DelhiRiots #warrenanderson #MarkZuckerberg #hindutva #islamophobia #hatespeech #industry #BJP #india #hartoshsinghbal
Point is any such exposé, solid investigative reportage, will not be done by or carried by any mainstream media outfit within very brave new India. Not even the Indian Express, The Telegraph, NDTV, or whoever. While by principle of journalism it should be routine -- each outfit doing various serious exposés all the time, and not a few silly supercilious political-masala ones, if any at all.
#BhopalGasTragedy #UnionCarbide
RT @Kum_Sambhav
Scoop: The company behind #BhopalGasTragedy created a secret backdoor channel, of dummy and shell firms, to do business in India. After it was declared absconder. Several govt-owned and private companies bought its products for 14 yrs. @shreegireesh and I report for @AJEnglish https://twitter.com/reporters_co/status/1598870527070064641
My article on the #BhopalGasTragedy do check out and subscribe for more such posts.
#BhopalGasTragedy was the worst industrial disaster ever in India. The scarier part is no lessons have been learnt after the tragedy, and it is waiting to happen in every city in India.
#lestweforget #bhopal #BhopalGasTragedy
There is a lot more to be said,but the sight of Warren Anderson, the Union Carbide chairman being escorted out of the country, with the help of the Government then, was rankling. In any law abiding country, Warren Anderson, would have been made to face the full force of law and prosecution. Here he got a special flight out of the country with support from the Central Govt.
There is a lot more to be said,but the sight of Warren Anderson, the Union Carbide chairman being escorted out of the country, with the help of the Government then, was rankling. In any law abiding country, Warren Anderson, would have been made to face the full force of law and prosecution. Here he got a special flight out of the country with support from the Central Govt.
By December 3 early morning thousands were dead in Bhopal, the worst affected were children, owing to their height, as MIC due to it's density tends to be on ground more. Over 16,000 were claimed to be dead, and around 550,000 permanently affected with some form of illness or other.
The tragedy was terrible, but what was even worse was that it could have been prevented.
Pathetic communication from Union Carbide ensured, that neither the authorities nor the public had any knowledge of the deadly gas leak. The city's Hamidia Hospital was first told the gas was ammonia, then phosgene.
The residents of Bhopal came to know of the deadly MIC only after they were exposed to it. No instructions to evacuate, or shelter. It was a complete criminal failure by Union Carbide.
Within 30-40 minutes in the wee hours of December 3, 1984, about 30 tonnes of MIC escaped into the air. Within 2 hours this would be 40 tonnes, and winds blew the gas in a southeastern direction.
What followed was even worse, while the plant siren was sounded and the workers evacuated, the public was not informed, even worse Union Carbide officials gave assurances that everything was fine.
The flare tower,whose purpose was to burn the MIC gas as it escaped, had a connecting pipe removed for maintenance, and it's size was not enough to handle the leak from E610.
A vent gas scrubber, which had been deactivated at the time and was in 'standby' mode. It had insufficient caustic soda and power to stop a leak of this magnitude.
This could have been averted or at least mitigated by 3 safety devices all of which were malfunctioning at the same time. Or not even in proper use.
A refrigeration system meant to cool tanks containing liquid MIC, shut down in January 1982, the high temperature alarm set to sound at 11 °C (52 °F) had long since been disconnected.
By 11 PM, the pressure in E610 tank reached an alarming 10 psi, employees thought it was due to instrument malfunction. By 12.40 AM, December 3, the reaction reached a critical state at an alarming speed. Temperatures in the tank now reached beyond 25 °C , the pressure shot up to 40 psi.
The emergency relief valve, burst open, as the pressure now shot up to 55 psi, the deadly MIC gas was now beginning to spread.
#bhopalgastragedy #bhopal
By early December 1984, most of the MIC related safety systems were malfunctioning, many valves and lines in poor condition. Also several vent gas scrubbers had been out of service as well as the steam boiler.
December 2,1984
During the late hours, water enters into Tank E610, which had the 42 tons of MIC lying there since October. The result was a runaway exothermic reaction, accelerated by contaminants, high ambient temperatures.
By late October 1984, one of the tanks E610, lost the ability to contain the nitrogen pressure, which meant the MIC could not be pumped out, following which MIC production was halted at the plant.
The plant's flare tower too was shut down to repair a corroded pipe, however production of carbaryl was resumed by late November using the MIC in the remaining 2 tanks.
#bhopalgastragedy #bhopal
Now while Bayer and other manufacturers discontinued the practice of using MIC to produce carbaryl, Union Carbide still continued this, as it cost much cheaper. Also with demand for pesticides falling, the MIC stocks kept piling up.
Union Carbide had 3 underground storage tanks for the Liquid MIC. As per safety regulations no tank should be filled with more than 50% capacity, so that the liquid MIC could be pumped out easily.
Rajkumar Keswani, a senior journalist, had investigated a series of leaks in the Union Carbide plant, right from 1981 onwards. He published his findings in a local newspaper with a warning- "Bhopal you are sitting on a volcano" .
MIC was used by Union Carbide as an intermediate to react with 1-naphthol to produce carbaryl, a pesticide. This process was used by Bayer too in the US.
It was not the first leak at the Union Carbide plant, much earlier in 1976, 2 trade unions had complained of pollution.
A worker died in 1981 after being exposed to phosgene gas. Around 24 workers were hospitalised in 1982. Gas leaks happened constantly in 1982, with most employees having to be hospitalised. Again in 1983-84, several minor gas leaks happened too.
One of the worst industrial disasters takes place in Bhopal on the early hours of December 2, 1984, when gas leak from the Union Carbide plant, exposes over 500,000 people to the deadly MIC( methyl isocyanate) gas.
A tale of corporate greed in nexus with political leaders, officials. It was not just one night, it was a tragedy waiting to happen, whose warning signals were ignored.
Thread on this.
RT @mrajshekhar
This @BBCSounds documentary on Rajkumar Keswani's journalism over #BhopalGasTragedy is very good. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001bs1r cc: @nutshal, @RamaNewDelhi, @VidyaKrishnan