On this beautiful blue planet, in order to survive and live a better life, people have always spared no effort to develop more advanced technology and civilization.
However, the double-edged nature of technology has also led to the self-inflicted consequences of human beings, resulting in many sensational catastrophic events.
The more famous major safety accidents in history include the Rhine River pollution incident, the Benxi Lake Coal Mine**, the oil pollution incident of the Armas cargo ship, and the oil pollution incident in British waters. Among them, the first of the "Top 10 Man-made Environmental Disasters" is the famous 1984 Bhopal** incident in India.
In fact, the Bhopal** incident involved not only environmental disasters, but also plundered 57The lives of 70,000 people and the disability of 200,000 people are still deeply rooted in that land to this day.
So, why did Bhopal, India, as the most promising science and technology industrial zone, suddenly change its face and become the executioner of murder?
Bhopal incident.
In the second half of the twentieth century, the developed countries in the West have been fully developed and are climbing to a more advanced stage, with technology, talent and other professional-oriented industries becoming darlings, while basic industries such as markets and resources have become hot potatoes.
On the other hand, developing countries are in the process of pursuing economic interests, and they are keen to attract foreign investment and introduce industries, but they do not pay so much attention to environmental and security issues.
A large pesticide factory in Bhopal, India, was born against this historical background.
In India at that time, there were a large number of hungry people in the country for a long time, and people's food was a big problem. As a result, the "green movement" in agriculture has been launched with great momentum, and it is imperative that there are enough fertilizers and pesticides.
India. At this time, a world-famous United Carbide company in the United States proposed to open a pesticide factory specializing in the production of pesticides in India, and the two sides hit it off, and the suburbs near the city of Bhopal were selected as the site.
In 1969, this large-scale pesticide factory was officially inaugurated, which was able to produce carbaryl, ditricarb and other pesticides, which brought great benefits to the development of Indian agriculture. After three years of trial production, its annual output can be as high as 5,000 tons.
It is worth noting that the raw material for these pesticides is a chemical material called isocyanate (MIC). MIC is generally stored in bottles and cans in the form of liquefied gas, and when the temperature inside the tank rises, it will leak out and be converted into gas, and once people come into contact with these MIC gases exposed to the air, their eyes will hurt.
If the concentration is too large, the gas will also invade the respiratory tract and digestive organs, causing serious lesions and even death.
Therefore, in order to keep the bottles and cans at a low temperature for a long time, most of the tanks must be carefully buried below the surface, and a refrigeration system must be installed between the tank walls, in addition to a series of complex industrial equipment such as purifiers and automatic ignition devices.
Indian farmer. In the beginning, the U.S. investors took into account India's large population and agriculture-based population, and more than 500 million farmers must need a lot of pesticides. But what they don't take into account is that India's arid climate, poor grain harvests in the fields, and chronic poverty among farmers simply don't have the extra money to buy pesticides.
So, a few years later, the factory's sales were far below the expected amount, and in order to save production costs, India** began to produce its own chemical raw materials.
By 1984, the factory's orders plummeted and it was facing a shutdown.
After a discussion at the meeting, the plant's management decided to make major reforms, including the dismissal of technicians, the reduction of operating staff, cutting corners, and reducing equipment management.
India** only thinks about reducing production costs, but forgets that they produce highly toxic gases and forget basic safety precautions. As a result, the poisonous demon took advantage of the void to enter, and the moment the disaster occurred, everyone was caught off guard.
Factory. On the evening of December 2, 1984, Bhopal was bustling with tourists. With its ancient and majestic city walls and more than 300 beautiful and majestic mosque gardens, it is known as the "Baghdad" of India, and in a few hours it will usher in the annual pilgrimage to the city, with people coming from all over the world.
The night is getting deeper, and after 12 o'clock, most of the residents of Bhopal have fallen asleep and the tourists have rested for tomorrow's event.
At 0:56, in the pesticide factory in the suburbs, after a burst of machine screams and a brief alarm, a sour, spicy, and pungent milky white gas wafted out of the storage tank, and soon rose above the factory, spreading rapidly in all directions like a demon's hand.
The poison gas first entered the slums of the suburbs, and the sleeping people died in their sleep before they could feel the pain. On the farm, not far from the pesticide factory, huge livestock also collapsed, screaming in pain.
Bhopal incident.
At first, the farmer on the bed thought it was the sound of a cow ruminating, but when he realized something was wrong, he got up to look at it, only to find that the cows had fallen into a large area. Soon, his eyes began to ache sharply, tears welled down his face, and in a panic he "thought there was a plague."
On the windless and foggy night, the concentration of poison gas continued to pass through temples, lakes and shops, and roam the streets wantonly.
In the train station, the beggars had no clothes to cover themselves, so they could only sit together in groups to keep warm, and when the poison gas arrived, some of them died instantly, and some of them showed symptoms of poisoning to varying degrees.
Some families in the city died in their sleep, while others closed their doors and windows when they smelled this strange gas, thinking that this would be a way to defend them, and as a result, the house became a poison den, and no one was spared.
Some people screamed and struggled and ran out of the room, came to the street, and found that there were panicked people everywhere, they scattered and fled, but they didn't know that it was safest to flee to **.
Bhopal incident.
Some people don't know what's going on, thinking that the city has suffered a big ** or military invasion, and hurriedly drag their families to sit in cars and bicycles and want to leave the city quickly.
Most of them ran with severe pain in their eyes, then lost their sight, and had to stumble on the side of the road one after another, sitting in the street wailing.
In addition to people, animals and plants are also doomed. Cows, sheep, chickens, dogs and other animals run and jump and rampage amid the screams and tragic deaths of their owners, and finally fall in a strange posture in the yard or on the road
The originally crystal clear water of the lake has also become turbid in the contamination of poisonous gases;The leaves of the plant have lost their original color, and the yellow spots are all over and covered with a thin white film.
The next morning, the city of Bhopal was littered with corpses, but every house was intact, and the smell of death mixed with poisonous gas quietly spread around every corner.
Bhopal incident.
Upon learning of a major safety incident, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who was on a campaign trip in northern India, rushed to the city of Bhopal to organize an accident investigation and rescue, and reported it to the city for economic allocation.
Over the next few days, Bhopal's hospitals were overcrowded, and the city's largest hospital, Hamidi, was queued for treatment.
The hospital sent an emergency signal, mobilized all the doctors and **, and arranged them in their respective posts, and in the end the medical staff was still far from enough, so the medical students who were studying could only be incorporated into the medical treatment team.
Every hospital has patients lying on their beds, and when they can't make a bed, the corridors of the hospital, the open space, and even the medical school become a place of treatment.
In addition to hospitals, volunteers were organized to help and even the army was mobilized to maintain order.
Bhopal incident.
They set up tents near the hospital that could accommodate 20 people as temporary wards, and set up special morgues to house those who died of poisoning, and the bodies of those who had no relatives to claim were cremated or buried by the authorities.
It is worth mentioning that many of those who died were small and stunted children.
In the news reported later, there was a ** that was particularly shocking - it was the body of a child who was about to be buried, his face was pale, his eyes were wide open, and there was no breath of life, like a white clay mask, and the body parts had been buried in the earth.
Every minute, the Grim Reaper is laughing and snatching lives.
Dead bodies are piled up in rows, trucks are responsible for transporting corpses, gravediggers who are responsible for digging long graves, tailors who make corpse clothes, and those who survive endure the grief in their hearts to see off their dead relatives and save lives for those who are still struggling.
Bhopal incident.
In crematoriums, since there is not enough wood and space, corpses can only be burned in piles, although this is already contrary to the religious requirements of Hinduism;
In the brand-new cemetery, there are remnants of wild dogs that are so hungry that they can only bark and pick open the graves, drag out the carcasses, and compete to gnaw.
The smell of rotting corpses and the smell of burning in crematoriums mingled with the cries, shouts, and sighs of the people, making it a living purgatory.
According to later statistics, after the occurrence of this safety accident, a total of 2In addition to 50,000 direct deaths and 550,000 indirect deaths, more than 200,000 of those who did survive were permanently disabled or blind, and pregnant women were either miscarried, malformed or stillborn.
Bhopal incident.
The Bhopal incident in India quickly attracted the attention of the world's major ** and the public, some crusaded against the production safety protection of Union Carbide Corporation in the United States, and some complained about the poor supervision of the local **, but everyone has a common demand, that is, to find out the truth! Why did it happen suddenly** and cause a poison gas leak?
After a comprehensive and long-term investigation, the official finally gave a complete investigation report, restoring the process of the disaster.
It turned out that on the night of December 2, the maintenance personnel cleaned the blocked filter on the process pipeline as usual, and according to the work requirements, he needed to separate the cleaned pipeline from the system and insert the blind plate near the valve, but I don't know whether it was negligence or lax work, in short, the maintenance personnel forgot to insert the blind plate.
During the flushing process, the flow of water into the 610 tank is unimpeded, and the water mixes with the MIC liquefied gas in the tank to undergo an exothermic reaction and generate CO2.
Bhopal incident.
The temperature inside the storage tank slowly rises, and the pressure rises in a straight line. At 23 o'clock, the operators in the control room changed shifts, and the pressure in the new tank reached 689 kPa, generally speaking, the normal pressure is 13Between 8 kpa and 172 kpa, so he didn't think anything out of the ordinary.
What he didn't know was that forty minutes ago, the pressure of the bottle and jar was only 138 kpa。
At 00:12, the operator noticed a gas leak in the storage tank in the production area, and the pressure of the storage tank quickly increased from 207 kPa to 380 kPa in a short period of time.
So the operator hurriedly reported to the squad leader, and everyone quickly launched first aid measures.
Bhopal incident.
So, after the danger occurs, why is there a situation where the rescue is not timely and the number of people is large?
First of all, people are concerned about the "double standard" behavior of Union Carbide in plant siting and installation.
The same factory is located in a sparsely populated area in the United States, but it is equipped with advanced computer alarm systems for security measures, while the factory in Bhopal, which is close to densely populated cities, is equipped with only general security devices.
This is clearly an act of slackness by American companies in Bhopal after evading severe domestic restrictions. Secondly, as mentioned earlier, due to the sluggish sales, the factory management relaxed its safety management.
Bhopal incident.
Due to the dismissal of technical personnel, the equipment and instruments in the factory are in disrepair, aging and malfunctioning, and no one supervises the maintenance; After the layoffs, one operator is responsible for at least 70 dashboards, indicators and controls, and it is inevitable that there will be times when there is a lack of energy and care errors;
In addition, the original six-month production safety training was directly reduced to 15 days, resulting in the lack of safety knowledge and emergency experience of most production workers.
In 1982, professionals conducted a safety inspection of the Bhopal plant, and later reported to Union Carbide that there were at least 61 hazards at the Bhopal plant.
Because of this, when the danger occurred, everyone tried to rescue it, but there were fatal defects such as no refrigerant in the refrigeration system, the combustion tower was in a state of maintenance, and the height of the water sprinkler system was not enough, and finally failed to stop the spread of the gas.
Bhopal incident.
When there is a danger, the staff also turns on the alarm.
However, because the siren system was not advanced enough, it was always sounded for various reasons, sometimes twenty or thirty times a day, like the fable of "the wolf came", and over time, the staff was always unable to distinguish when the real danger was.
Therefore, for the sake of convenience, the factory management set the alarm sound and turned off automatically after five minutes. As a result, the danger signals were not transmitted to the surrounding residents in a timely manner.
Finally, during the gas leak, the factory not only failed to teach the citizens how to properly protect and escape, but also did not provide information about the gas to the hospital.
Bhopal incident.
Prior to this, the plant's managers were very conceited that the Bhopal plant was so safe that even a gas leak would have no consequences, and the Minister of Labor even said in public on several occasions"Nothing will ever happen at the Bhopal plant. ”
After the gas leaked, the factory staff knew to use wet handkerchiefs to keep their eyes moist and run out of the city, but they did not tell the residents of the city what the dangerous gas was and what to do if it leaked.
When someone called to ask if it was, they just vaguely said that it was just a kind of "strong tear gas". Similarly, the factory did not inform the hospital of any information about the full chemical composition of the gas, and it was not until doctors performed an autopsy on the body that it was found to contain at least 27 chemicals.
On December 5, when the United States Union Carbide Company called ** and said that sodium thiosulfate could be used for rescue, the factory was afraid of taking responsibility and did not make it public, and even expelled the famous West German poison expert who brought the drug to **.
To sum up, behind an accidental mistake is a long-term management negligence and conceited ignorance.
Bhopal incident.
Although the fuse was a mistake, those responsible for negligence from the beginning to the end should be punished, and India needs to give an explanation to its people, as well as to those who are concerned about this matter all over the world.
So after this ** incident, India ** filed a lawsuit against the United States Carbide Corporation, and Prime Minister La Gandhi demanded that the American company pay due compensation for the damages, and also announced on behalf of ** that no factories producing hazardous chemicals would be allowed to be set up in densely populated areas in the future.
After a lengthy court dispute, Union Carbide paid India 4$700 million in damages, while the Indian side has also been criminally punished by the executives involved.
And this punishment, five years have passed since the disaster, and for this reason, many victims and their families gathered around the court with banners ** "came too late".
Bhopal incident.
On the 25th anniversary of the events in Bhopal**, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said bitterly that the disaster "has been tormenting Indians physically and mentally".
Years later, the terrible conditions may have faded into obscurity, but in fact the catastrophe has not disappeared – in December 1999, the concentration of harmful substances in the groundwater in the area was still well above safe standards; In 2009, there were still a lot of chemical residues around the plant in the area.
Today, the rate of cancer and child mortality among people living there is still one of the highest among Indian cities.
And those who have recovered are often tormented by sequelae - some have lesions, some suffer from mental illness, some have become depressed, and some have lost their jobs because they have become disabled.
Bhopal incident.
The Bhopal plant is the economic evil result of the transfer of environmental pollution in developed countries, and while we remember the victims of the disaster, we should also remember that civilization is for progress, not for disaster! In the face of possible danger, we must not relax for a moment!
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