The gas leak incident in LG factory of Vizag (Visakhapattnam) in Andhra Pradesh early morning on Thursday, brought back chilling memories of similar scenes from Bhopal where thousands died within hours during the MiC leak from Union Carbide plant in old city on the intervening night of December 2-3.
Scenes of locals, some of them disoriented due to gas leak, some helping family members and kin while others lying on the pavements hardly able to breathe due to exposure to styrene gas leaked out of LG Polymers plant brought back haunted memories of Bhopal gas tragedywhich had killed 5295 people died and 5,27,894 were affected after being exposed to some 40 tonne of methyl isocyanate gas leaked from a pesticide plant owned by the US multinational, Union Carbide Corp.However, the numbers of dead were much more than these official figures.Bhopal incident had happened mi night and the one took place in Visakhapatnam around 2.30am, when the locals were fast asleep and had little idea what struck them.
Rachna Dhingra, from Bhopal Group for Information and Action who is fighting for social and legal justice of Bhopal gas victims told that visuals from Visakhapatnam are quite similar to those in Bhopal in 1984.
“The cause also seems the same—compromised safety systems at industrial units.”
Here (Visakhapattnam) als people had no what happened in their neighbourhood and perhaps not taught measures to protect themselves while the gas leaked.
“Like case was with Union Carbide, it’s again vindicated that corporates could kill with ease defying laws,” said Dhingra, hinting towards UC dodging criminal liability of 1984 incident.
Such units using hazardous chemicals should be at distance from the habitation, use safety alarms and all the safety parameters which perhaps were violated by the company (at Visakhapattnam), added the volunteer activist claiming similar things had happened in Bhopal.
Post 1984, safety norms, requirement of safety equipment while dealing with hazardous chemicals, safety audits by Industry Department have come to force in all these years so unless there is a failure of equipment or human error, industrial mishaps are unlikely, claimed the scientist.
After 1984 incident, Environment Protection Act came into force regulating industrial activities, Disaster Management rules were formulated and eventually the NDMA 2005 passed in 2005 which is also helping in corona fight, said Joshi.
“Hazardous chemical use has a certain protocol to be followed which was also there at UC but was not followed due to lack of statuary guidelines then,” she added.