Abstract- A tragedy that was a catastrophe and had no parallel in the world’s industrial history. Tons of toxic gas was leaked and spread throughout the city. An estimated 10,000 people died and 500,000 suffered injuries with disastrous effect. Bhopal Gas Tragedy, 1984 was a disaster in the world’s industrial history. In the early morning hours of December 3, a poisonous gas was leaked from union carbide plant in Madhya Pradesh. The gas was leaked and spread throughout the city. There was a disastrous effect and the nightmare has still no end. People awoke to suffocating gas and started running through dark streets. The victims arrived breathless and blind at the hospital.
The brain, lungs, muscles, eyes, reproductive system and even the
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Thirty years later, there is no result, not because of what happened at that night, but because of our incompetent response.
Bhopal was shaken by two disasters/ tragedies- the one that happened immediately and the other one which unfolded over the years.
The issue was that no one knew about the antidote. Within few days of the tragedy, people accepted that many human beings were suffering from tuberculosis and anemia. Till date no one knows the health impacts and how to treat people who are suffering from the gas.
So, Union carbide used trade secrecy as a prerogative to hold the information on the leaked gases. Though it was known when it reacts with water at high temperatures, could intoxicate many highly toxic chemicals. Research was carried out only to check the toxicity of MIC- that also on animals. (Anon., 2014)
Therefore, the measures were indicative. There is unlawful carelessness. In the first few weeks, there was a result that people might be accepted to cyanide poisoning. But later, these measure were stopped due to pressure from UCC and their team of
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Later as in the case, it was perceived that there many more victims who got severely affected to poisonous Gas.
Therefore, when the case was prepared, indemnity was provided to the whole city. People got their money by getting “affected” from the Gas leakage and even there were a lot of claims were filed, by representing some 70% of the population of the place.
Families of the dead people got 2-3 lakh rupees as compensation and other also got money but they were classified as “injured”.
The government even cut down the amount of what was discharged over Six years as a relief to the company. The final agreement came to Rs. 15,000 per person who was affected in any sense. This agreement didn’t cause any good to the victims, whose medical bills continue to mount and many argued that total death have not been taken into consideration, but the government refused to reopen the case of compensation settlement.
Finally a relief hope was generated in 2010, where a group of ministers confirmed that they would only give the compensation to the already counted victims. They increased the amount to Rs. 10 lakhs for the cases of death and Rs. 1- 5 lakhs for the people got disable and were suffering from cancer and other
The decision in Equuscorp is significant, as it has made clear several principles that were once ambiguous under Australian law. It ratifies that restitutionary remedies are unavailable for a claim for money had and received where recovery would reduce coherence in the law. Furthermore, Equuscorp has confirmed that a bare cause of action can be assigned where the assignee has a genuine commercial interest in its enforcement.
...ages was excessive compared to the damage suffered by the plaintiffs and the defendant’s “failures to fulfill contractual obligations”15. This decision could be a start in introducing punitive damages in France, though two conditions would need to be fulfilled for them to be allocated - proportionality both to the damage suffered, and to the defendant’s “failures to fulfill contractual obligations”.
Before the jury decides a verdict, the last step in the trial process is the closing arguments. There were no closing arguments because the parties had to settle on nine million dollars. They did this because the plaintiff’s attorneys went bankrupt due to this case and they couldn’t afford to invest any more money into the case. Beatrice Foods ended up being not liable for the deaths of children so they were allowed to leave the case. Due to this, only W.R. Grace had to settle with the plaintiff. Later on in 1988, Jan Schlichtmann brought this case to the EPA’s attention and the EPA decided to bring lawsuits against the companies. W.R. Grace and Beatrice Foods ended up having to pay for their huge mistake. They had to pay for the largest chemical cleanup in the Northeastern which cost sixty- four million dollars.
The first thing that one needs to consider is the situation that victims are normally under. No one chooses to be in an accident, it is something that is unexpected. Because of that those who are affected are often not at a point financially where they can handle the results of the accident such as lost time at work, medical bills, and other associated cost. Worsening the situation is the fact that the injuring party in the accident often does not want to compensate the victims for their actions. This results in an even
" The air was blue with smoke and this plus the tremendous heat from the boilers drew off the oxygen. Everyone suffered from the headaches and men who'd lived outdoors all their lives passed out because they couldn't breathe." (Findley, 58)
At the end I come to conclusion that BP was not properly prepared for any disaster like that there risk assessment related to project is very limited and even not considered seriously about it for their own progress and putting live of public and employees in danger by not following the standard SOP of particular project. Even after incident happened they try to close their eyes on reality. The company should take this incident as alarm and should implement proper risk assessment for future and also compensate damages on ethical ground and if they counter this situation in good way their loss of bad reputation will be lesser as it predicted to be they should considered their responsibility towards society as well by doing this they not only making other people lives better but also earning good will to their company.
Poison gas was perhaps the most feared weapon out of all. Created to overcome the long stalemate style of trench warfare, its purpose was to draw out soldiers hiding in the trenches. One side would throw the poison gas into the enemy trenches and they would either wait for their enemy to come out into open fire or perish in the trenches. The first poison gas used in battle was chlorine at the start of the Second Battle of Ypres on April 22, 1915 by the Germans. Shortly after, followed the phosgene. The effects of these gases were ghastly. Chlorine was the most deadly as "within seconds of inhaling its vapor, it destroys the victim's respiratory organs, bringing on choking attacks" (Duffy). Phosgene had similar effects, except the fact that the effects started kicking in after 48 hours of inhalation. In September 1917, the Germans introduced the mustard gas or Yperite which was contained in artillery shells against the Russians at Riga. Those exposed t...
Walsh, Julie. "September 11 Terrorist Attacks." In Campell, Ballard C., Ph.D., Gen. Ed. Disasters, Accidents, and Crises in American History. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2008. American History Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE52&iPin=DACH0197&SingleRecord=True (accessed April 6, 2014).
Rachel Carson was a zoologist, writer, and an ecologist. She recognized the issues which would prove to have deleterious long-term effects. On 27th September 1962, a book which changed the course of the 'environmental movement' was published. It was lauded by supporters who had witnessed the ill-effects of biocides and those who had amassed similar scientific proof. Both Rachel Carson and her publishers had expected a backlash of criticism which unsurprisingly came from chemical industries like Dupont and American Cyanamid. Soon after the book was published, a Dupont initiative 'Union Carbide' single handedly caused the biggest industrial chemical disaster in Bhopal. Major companies like Monsanto led colorful defaming campaigns against the author. The campaign seemed to backfire as the publicity led to increased book sales, and the public awareness rose proportionally. The overwhelming public response had forced the U.S Senate to pay heed to Rachel Carson's views. She presented the scientific data accumulated for the book to President John F. Kennedy and his sub-committee. Their agenda was to formulate policies to counteract the pollution caused by
compensation to cure her injuries, there is no point of justice. And punishment is not a solution.
It was clear that the governments in America would not issue a permit to Union Carbide plant under such circumstances, which lacked severe environmental standards and permitted slum dwellers to live near the plant and so on. Such actions were the ones that led to more deaths. Before the major gas leakage from the MCI unit on December 3, 1984, some people were killed because of phosgene gas leakage. However, no one took it seriously, despite the media report. One of the reasons that people ignore this was because people didnt know the potential danger of the chemical plant.
The loss of a life is the ultimate tragedy, and over the thousands of years of mining history, the industry has had its share of casualties. Mining deals with the extraction of raw materials like coal, diamond, iron-ore etc. Mining industries can be both open cast mining and underground mining. Although we have improved in the technology and study of the earth, mining industry is a very dangerous job. One of the most dangerous work of mining has been mentioned to be coal mining in which they extract coal from underground. Coal mining hazardous mixture of gas and coal dust can form a fatal explosion. As a matter of fact, I reviewed an article that mention the worst coal mining known as the Benxi Hu colliery disaster in China in 1942. “Cost 1,549 lives and is believed to be the worst coal mining disaster ever.” (Limited, 2014)
One of the worst cases of catastrophic event in history is the Bhopal Union Carbide case.
The worst accident in the history of this nuclear power generation occurred on the morning of April 26, 1986. It was at the Chernobyl (Ukraine) nuclear power station in the Soviet Union. At 1:32AM Lieutenant Colonel Leonid Telyatnikov received a telephone call and was told that there was a fire at the nuclear power plant. There were many reasons their plant had backfired. These reasons included human error and poor plant design due to the cold war. Chernobyl was located in the former Soviet Union in what is now Ukraine. The area in and around Chernobyl is now a nuclear wasteland. People are not supposed to live in these areas, yet they still do, even with the danger of mutations and radiation sickness. For the people and countries affected by the radiation, this was a horrible, terrifying and angering experience. Villages were evacuated late and not many things were done in time to save lives and prevent more damages.
During the winter of 1952-1953, London came face to face with the “heaviest winter smog episode known to men.” (Environmental disasters) During the weeks leading to this even London had been experiencing colder than usual weather. Because of the cold weather, households were burning more coal to keep their families warm. This caused “additional coal combustion and many people travelled only by car, which caused the occurrence of a combination of black soot, sticky particles of tar and gaseous sulphur dioxide.” (Environmental disasters) During this event the numbers of deaths per day increased to a nine times the normal number in some cities. The smog approximately killed 12,000 people. Most of the victims were children and elderly people.