The Bhopal Gas Tragedy

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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 …show more content…

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 …show more content…

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

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