Las Consecuencias Del Petroleo

An evaluation of the economic, social and environmental impacts of the action taken in real life

Social / economic

Poor safety measures, the storage of large quantities of lethal gas (methyl isocyanate) at the wrong temperature, the accidental or deliberate introduction of water to one of the gas storage tanks, confusion in detecting a rise in pressure in the tank and ineffective response to its detection - all these factors are believed to be responsible for the gas leak tragedy at Union Carbide’s chemical plant in Bhopal, India.

Union Carbide has always refused to accept full responsibility for the disaster - though it accepted “moral responsibility” from the outset – maintaining that sabotage by a disgruntled employee was the main cause of the disaster. The actual death toll from the Bhopal tragedy is undetermined. The most accurate estimate appears to be that over 3,000 people died and over 300,000 were injured. About 2,000 animals are estimated to have died and 7,000 were injured severely. Vegetation was destroyed in surrounding areas. Many people exposed to the gas will face a lifetime of ill-health with eye and lung disorders. Known costs, including liability charges and payments to build hospitals, exceed US$527m. By 12 March 1991 Union Carbide had collected US$167m in insurance from the disaster.

In a sample of 865 women who lived within a kilometre of the plant and who were pregnant at the time of the gas leak, 43% of the pregnancies did not result in live births. Of the 486 live births, 14 percent of babies died in the first 30 days compared to a death rate of 2.6 to 3 percent for previous deliveries in the two years preceding the accident in the same group of women

The true death rate for children who were exposed to Union Carbide’s gases in their mother’s wombs was nearly 50 percent. This horrifying figure and the monstrous births that had begun taking place were hushed-up by panic-stricken officials

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