The “accident” at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal happened around midnight

“Municipal authorities in Bhopal objected to the continuing use of the plant at its original location. However UCIL was a very powerful company in India. Its high paying jobs mad it an attractive employer, and among its workers were many former government officials, as well as relatives of high ranking current officials. The central and state government authorities overruled the city’s objections and granted approval of continuation” (42).

These are not new concepts by any means. The poor are controlled and forced into situations by those with more money, who in turn have more power. Forcing locations is just another form of controlling the so called “dangerous class”. The fact that the poor shanty town settlements were the affected parties is no new trend to industrial accidents either. Similar industrial accidents, occurring in Mexico City and Cuba Tao resulting in hundreds of deaths, also occurred around shanty towns. Those who died were obviously then, poor. But what could be done to prevent these people from dying? Well for starters the government, or the plant itself, could get off their asses and look into finding out where these communities were springing up. If it is dangerous, and most importantly un-zoned, for the squatters to be there, KICK THEM OUT! If the plant is inclined to hire their workers from this population they should at least find them some decent and safe housing to live in! If that fails, and the government cannot control the growth of the shanty population they should be prepared to “buy up the land and fence it off” (Kletz 85). These are fairly simple ideas to grasp that could have saved many lives, but the corporation and the government were to busy.

The victims and families of victims of the Bhopal tragedy had very intense feelings of wrongdoing on the part of both the Indian government and Union Carbide. In fact the people of Bhopal felt so betrayed they sued the government for allowing the plant to house dangerous chemicals and, on top of that, allowed for the practice of unsafe conditions at the plant (Shrivastava 40-41). The actions of most corporate and government criminals is simple, the first step is to delay action, then deny responsibility, and finally disregard further complaints. This is seen on the part of Union Carbide, and on the part of the Indian Government. The government saw that their people were extremely upset at them and decided to use their legislative powers to pass the “Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster Act in March of 1985. This arrogated to itself sole power to represent the victims in the civil and criminal litigations against Union Carbide” (Parasuraman 338). This was a blatant example of deterring the blame for the accident! This turn of events led the victims to feel as though one of the contributors to their condition was now the only one able to defend their situation in the court. Meanwhile the people at Union Carbide were well on their way to playing the delay, deny, disregard game. The first team UCC sent to Bhopal after the tragedy was a team of lawyers. The lawyers obviously had to assess the chances of litigation, at the hands of the Indian people, due to UCC liability. Lawyers, not a medical staff, lawyers were first on the scene. That is a nice delay tactic. The second tactic seen was one of denial. In so many press releases, newspaper articles, magazines and so on, UCC continued to deny the fact that the MIC gas was harmful at all, but rather just a severe form of tear gas. Finally after nearly five years of charades between the Indian government and UCC a settlement was reached.

MIC is a highly toxic substance used for making carbaryl, the active agent in the pesticide Sevin. It is highly unstable and needs to be kept at low temperatures. UCIL (Union Carbide India Limited) manufactured MIC in large batches and stored it in three very large holding tanks underground (Shrivastava 42). Just the thought of all the dangerous chemicals in suc

Some topics in this essay:
Union Carbide, Cuba Tao, Dear God, India Limited, Dow Chemicals, Bhopal India, Dow Chemical, Appleson UCC, Danbury Connecticut, Panama Deception, union carbide, indian government, mic gas, safety systems, indian people, parasuraman 337, flare tower, refrigeration system, corporate government, settlement reached, miah hame bacha, union carbide india, government corporate officials, tons mic gas, claimants” fortun 17,