Reminiscing the dreadfully deadly Bhopal gas disaster on its 40th anniversary

By Mayank Chhaya-

December 3 marks the 40th anniversary of the Bhopal gas disaster. It was around midnight on December 2, 1984, that an explosion inside a tank containing the deadly Methyl Isocyanate (MIC) at Union Carbide India Limited’s (UCIL) Bhopal plant caused what is now the world’s worst industrial disaster.

One of my passing regrets as a journalist is that I did not get to report the story from Bhopal. I have frequently written about the Bhopal gas disaster, including how I ended up solely reporting the corporate angle to the story because I lived in Bombay which was also the India headquarters of Union Carbide.

As a junior reporter working for a Bombay newspaper (The Free Press Journal) with a Bhopal edition, I had no prospects of covering the Union Carbide gas disaster from its location.

Fortunately, and I say this purely from a professional journalist’s perspective), I got an opportunity to work for the Associated Press (AP) in January 1985, barely a month after a tank at Union Carbide’s Bhopal plant exploded into a devastating leak. Being based in Bombay as the AP bureau chief, it became part of my assignment to cover the story from the corporate angle. That meant establishing contact with UCIL’s managing director Vijay Gokhale. Incidentally, Gokhale, who was convicted along with another UCIL official K.V. Shetty by an Indian court, died without serving any prison time.

When I first met Gokhale he had an air of befuddled amiability about him. He had taken over barely a year before the disaster after spending some time in the US. He appeared to look for an ally in a representative of the iconic news institution of America. I am happy to report that he did not find one in me.

In a sense whatever I wrote of the Bhopal story was from the vantage point of a deeply embattled chief executive. There was a time when I used to meet him practically every week in his office near Charni Road station. The most frequently discussed subject between him and I was how the deadly Methyl Isocyanate (MIC) gas had leaked from Tank 610 at the plant. The tank had 42 tons of MIC liquid, which is colorless but has a pungent smell.

The initial explanation behind the leak was that a large quantity of water entered the tank setting off a rapid chain reaction with the highly flammable liquid. As the temperature inside jumped to 200 degrees C. (392 degrees F.) the tank became of a gigantic weapon. The tank’s vent worked the way they should have and began leaking the gaseous MIC into the air.

Ironically, some experts I spoke to at that time argued that under the circumstances they would rather that the vent did not work. That would have led the tank to explode at the site and may have limited the quantity of gaseous MIC as the still liquid water-MIC mixture would have seeped into the plant’s ground. It would have caused a localized gas leak which may have taken far less lives. I am not sure if this theory made any sense.

I recall Gokhale being unable to fully explain how 42 tons of deadly chemicals were allowed to be stored in the first place. Many UCIL engineers were brought into his well-appointed office to explain to me how this accident could have happened. It was also subtly suggested that the leak may even have been an act of sabotage by some disgruntled workers. They had inferred that from the fact that so much water had gone into Tank 610.

One particular engineer, whose name has escaped my memory, was so convinced that it was an act of sabotage that Gokhale had to rein him in and reprimand him in my presence. Gokhale said something to the effect, “We cannot make any such claims right now” and told me to discount the engineer’s version.

Gokhale always had an expression of contrition every time I met him. It was almost as if he needed an independent outsider to see and recognize his personal pain and regret at what had happened. Initially, I did respond to his anguish but as time went by it came across as a pose. I am sure he felt what he said he did but it was still nothing compared to the thousands who died and were maimed.

An estimated 574,000 were poisoned that dreadful night and more than 20,000 people have died since from related conditions. In the immediate aftermath, the death toll within the first three days was said to be 10,000.

Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), the parent company of UCIL then, escaped accountability. It is a measure of the callousness of both UCC and the Indian government of the day that in 1989 they reached an out-of-court settlement of $470 million without consulting Bhopal Gas Tragedy survivors. That amount was barely 15% of what the government had originally demanded. It fell woefully short of the extent death and health damage it caused in the immediate aftermath and, in some ways, continues to affect survivors.

UCIL was sold to the Dow Chemical Company and has said it bears no responsibility because it “never owned or operated the plant” and bought it 16 years after the accident.

 

[Title courtesy IANS: Bhopal: Members of the Chingari Trust, along with survivors of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy, take part in a candlelight vigil Caption : Bhopal: Members of the Chingari Trust, along with survivors of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy, take part in a candlelight vigil to pay homage to the victims on the eve of the 40th anniversary in Bhopal on Saturday, December 2, 2023.]