Union Carbide planted the seeds of the Bhopal tragedy in 1969, when their Indian subsidiary constructed a plant to produce their popular garden pesticide, Sevin, in Bhopal, India.pic.twitter.com/hfUwEpGDg6
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The plant's evacuation siren sounded, automatically triggering the public alarms in town. Plant management quickly silenced the public alarm and twice informed the local police that "everything is okay."
When the public alarm finally sounded again ninety minutes later, a Union Carbide employee came to the police control room to explain that a leak had occurred, but been plugged.
As the company downplayed the disaster, 30 tons of MIC cascaded downwards towards the residents of Bhopal, settling thickly. Hearing the alarm but receiving no warning to shelter in place, residents opened their doors to see what was happening, inhaling the deadly chemical.pic.twitter.com/NAF1jYnz6s
The initial symptoms of choking, vomiting, tears, and uncontrollable coughing awakened residents, who exited their homes and raced to escape, inhaling even more poison as they exerted themselves.
The gas was dense, twice the weight of air. It settled low to the ground, leaving smaller people-- children-- breathing the highest concentrations.pic.twitter.com/jF06zqtyN8
By dawn, thousands were dead. Under-trained doctors, initially told by plant management that the gas was phosphene and later told only the name of the poison and no other details, struggled to care for the thousands overwhelming local healthcare systems.pic.twitter.com/qMR3RKXWW2
In the gruesome wake of the accident, Union Carbide officials shut down and abandoned the plant, leaving behind thousands of tons of toxic waste-- some buried, some in vast evaporation ponds, some openly exposed to the elements.pic.twitter.com/eYtgV76noT
From http://Bhopal.org : "After the catastrophic gas leak, the factory was locked up and left to rot, with all the chemicals and wastes still there. Union Carbide left the factory and its surrounds without cleaning them..."
Every year, monsoon rains overflowed "the huge ‘ponds’, the toxins seeped down through the soil, and filtered into underground channels and pools. Wells drawn from these ground water pools serve around 50,000 people living in eighteen townships."pic.twitter.com/HLfhLG7CXe
The Bhopal disaster caused an estimated total of $4.1 billion in distress and damages. Union Carbide paid out a total of $470 million (approximately 0.1% of that estimate), a figure based in part on a valuation of human life at the $3.75/day salary they paid Bhopal workers.pic.twitter.com/UsBVaLApIC
The Union Carbide settlement was so shockingly low that company stock prices shot up at its announcement. Theen-CEO Warren Anderson was charged with manslaughter in India, but released from custody and permitted to return to the US before trial. He never returned.pic.twitter.com/k3IFCgiwWl
DOW Chemical acquired Union Carbide in 2001. The United States declined to extradite Anderson. IN 2014, he died peacefully in a nursing home at the age of 94, still a fugitive from Indian justice.pic.twitter.com/GPvbnB1z2S
So what does this tragedy have to do with the PES refinery in Philadelphia? A lot. Thread part 2 starts here.https://twitter.com/gwensnyderPHL/status/1142570442458316805 …
(Correction: I put the wrong number of zeroes into my calculator, so this is still a travesty, but not quite as insanely as I first wrote. Thank you for the gentle correction, @daveparke)pic.twitter.com/D8PMvmBXdQ
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