The Bhopal Gas Tragedy can be seen as the world's worst industrial catastrophe. It occurred on the mid night of December 2-3, 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) in Bhopal. Somehow water entered a tank containing 42 tons of MIC. The resulting reaction released toxic gases into the atmosphere. The gases were blown all over the city of Bhopal, causing great panic as people woke up with a burning sensation in their eyes and lungs. It is true that sometimes we cannot avoid such accidents. We can just try to minimize the ill-effects of such accidents. But, this was not at all the case that happened.
Ghulam Dastagir was the then Deputy Station Superintendent on duty at that time. He suspected that something is going wrong. At that point of time, the Ghorakhpur-Kanpur Express was standing on a platform, full of passengers whose departure time was 20 minutes away. He immediately alerted the officials and made the train to go out of the station. But due to this direct exposure, he had to spend 19 years in hospital and finally passed away.
It is really very unfortunate that almost 20,000 people died and 5.7 Lakh suffered.This is the absolute failure of administration and the government.
The following facts clearly prove that it is totally the administration failure in regulating that impact:
- There was an alarm which got triggered immediately after the leak started. But no one knew what to do in case of leak. They were very badly educated about that.
- No one were available to announce all over the locality about the leak. When a factory manufactures / deals with such highly toxic chemicals, workers and administration must be fully prepared. A risk management team must be setup. This did not happen here.
- The surrounding township people were not educated about this. No one taught them about the way they should react in case of any leak. When the gas started following them, the started running here and there instead of lying down and covering their face. When they ran like that, they inhaled more and more toxic air and were greatly affected by that.
- This factory is very near to the Bhopal railway station. It is a fact that, a train just then came from some place with full of passengers and passed through the railway station at the same time. This train passed through the station with its regular speed., as a result of which, entire compartments were filled with toxic air. It is a fact that, when the train crossed the railway station, all the passengers were turned into dead bodies. Now, a point to note again.. No railway officials were informed about this. If they had sufficient information about the leak, they would have stopped the train in outskirts and ran out of the station informing everyone on the platforms.
Ghulam Dastagir was the then Deputy Station Superintendent on duty at that time. He suspected that something is going wrong. At that point of time, the Ghorakhpur-Kanpur Express was standing on a platform, full of passengers whose departure time was 20 minutes away. He immediately alerted the officials and made the train to go out of the station. But due to this direct exposure, he had to spend 19 years in hospital and finally passed away.
It is really very unfortunate that almost 20,000 people died and 5.7 Lakh suffered.This is the absolute failure of administration and the government.
Really a very tragic incident. Awareness is really important. When such situations occur, people cant think properly and the actions performed by them at that time causes more harm than that would be caused normally. Hatsoff to Ghulam Dastagir.
ReplyDeleteTrue.. they say luck favours the prepared, it didn't on that tragic day..
ReplyDeleteAs our organic chemistry teacher pointed out to us had it rained on the day of bhopal gas tragedy leak out it would have saved a lot of lives. MIC or methy isocynate the toxic gas which caused the tragedy would release carbon di oxide and amines when it reacts with water, though these are not so safe chemicals but are defineitely not as lethal as MIC
Yeah Bindu and SriChakra... it was the most unexpected and unfortunate incident.
ReplyDeleteIt is said that, railway passengers were asked to close the doors and windows on reaching the Bhopal station for a period of almost ten months after the gas leak,. Such a huge impact it had...