4. A Business Whose Negligence Caused a Catastrophe
Like most days at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, little stood out about December 2nd, 1984, to differentiate it from other days. That night, however, the plant leaked roughly forty tons of a highly poisonous gas called methyl isocyanate (MIC), along with other toxic airborne substances. It was one of history’s worst industrial accidents. The plant was located in a densely-populated area and surrounded by shanty towns. Over 600,000 people suffered from exposure to the lethal cloud. Thousands perished, and thousands more suffered permanent disabilities or were otherwise seriously injured.
It came to be known as the Bhopal Disaster. What took the catastrophe from the realm of industrial accident to one of sheer corporate evil was the callousness exhibited by Union Carbide before, during, and after the event. As seen below, the plant had a history of poor safety practices and near misses. The alarm had been raised for years but was ignored. The business had even turned down a request from local management for protective measures that would have averted the leak because it deemed such measures to be too expensive.
