Bhopal Tragedy Case Study

Bhopal Disaster

On the night December 3rd, one of the worst industrial accidents in history occurred in Bhopal, India. A gas leak spread throughout the streets of Bhopal and devastated all of the inhabitants in the area; at least 3800 of the residents were immediately killed. The gas that leaked was known as methyl isocyanate (MIC). An estimate of forty tons of the gas was leaked. The death toll quickly rose to the tens of thousands in the following days. The total count of people affected is close to half million people. Many questions arose from this incident, such as how and why it happened and how it could be avoided. The Indian government had hoped in industrializing the nation. The Indian government implemented policies that would attract foreign companies to invest in local industry. One of the companies that invested was a large chemical producing company called the Union Carbide Corporation (UCC). The company built a plant that produced a commonly used pesticide, Sevin, in Bhopal. The plant was run by

By doing so, the company avoided a hostile takeover, placed a significant portion of UCC 's assets out of legal reach of the victims and gave its shareholder and top executives bountiful profits. The company currently operates under the ownership of Dow Chemicals and states that the Bhopal disaster was "caused by deliberate sabotage". Some positive changes were seen following the Bhopal disaster. Other pesticide manufacturing companies such as the British chemical company, ICI, increased attention and awareness to health, safety, and environmental related issues following the events of that dreaded night. The subsidiary now spends 30–40% of their capital expenditures on environmental-related projects. It is important to note that Dow never owned or operated the plant, which today is under the control of the Madhya Pradesh state