Word: accidentally
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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By week's end more than 2,500 people were dead in the worst industrial disaster the world has known. At least 1,000 more were expected to die from the fumes in the next two weeks; some 3,000 remained critically ill. In all, 150,000 people were treated...
The disaster in Bhopal was the latest in a series of major industrial mishaps around the world, some with immediate fatal results, others with lingering, long-term consequences. Last week in Taiwan, leaking methane gas in a coal shaft triggered an explosion that killed 33 miners. Two weeks earlier, a...
Prominent among the targets of that antibusiness backlash was Union Carbide. Within hours of the accident, police in Bhopal closed the plant and arrested its manager, J. Mukund, as well as four of his colleagues, on charges of "culpable homicide through negligence." When a team of five technical experts from...
As Indian officials began their investigations, details started to emerge about what went wrong at the plant. Methyl isocyanate, a colorless chemical compound that behaves in humans and animals like a potent form of tear gas (see box), is used by Union Carbide as an ingredient in producing relatively toxic...
Whether through human error or mechanical failure, neither of those safety measures worked last week. The plant had been temporarily closed for maintenance two weeks before the accident, and both the methyl isocyanate storage tanks and the pipes connecting them were under repair. According to Madanlal Ranji, president of the...