Word: bhopal
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...While Bhopal was full of frantic activity, an air of funereal quiet hung over Union Carbide's sprawling headquarters in Danbury, Conn. Flags were flying at half-mast; Christmas parties had been canceled. "Nobody is feeling very festive around here," said a company official. Indeed, the survivors of the tragedy and those being accused of responsibility for it were distinctly hard pressed last week. Both groups remained haunted by the prospect of delayed repercussions: the 200,000 residents of Bhopal who had inhaled the gas faced lingering fears and possible long-term medical effects, while Union Carbide...
None of those precautions, however, were sufficient to assuage the fears of many Bhopal residents. Even as policemen bearing megaphones cried, "No danger, no danger!" tens of thousands of people left town in a hurry. Dressed in their best clothes, they packed belongings, withdrew money from banks and crowded into, and often on top of, buses and trains. Bicycles, bullock carts, three-wheel scooters and rickshas clogged the streets. With the detoxification still nearly 36 hours away, an estimated 200,000 of the city's 672,000 residents had fled...
That hostility had been evident when local authorities briefly placed Union Carbide Chairman Warren Anderson under house arrest as soon as he arrived in Bhopal to inspect the damage. Upon returning to the U.S. last week, Anderson insisted that neither he nor his company was responsible for the tragedy. But, he said, "Union Carbide has a moral responsibility in this matter, and we are not ducking it." Anderson said he would consider returning to India to stand trial on charges of crimes including "criminal conspiracy," which under Indian law carries a maximum penalty of death. One hopeful sign...
Union Carbide also made public a report compiled two years ago by three company inspectors. On a tour of the Bhopal plant in May 1982, the team had discovered ten potentially major safety deficiencies, as well as a number of other irregularities. These included a pressure relief valve on a gas storage tank that would be unable to stop a "runaway reaction" and a possibility of "accidental overfilling" of a tank holding the lethal chemical. All-or none-of those ten problems may have contributed to the recent tragedy. Company officials insisted that nine of the deficiencies had been corrected...
...Bhopal, meanwhile, the scene at Hamidia Hospital remained tense. When Ashok Bhaba, a local politician, accused two senior doctors of discharging a patient prematurely, a scuffle broke out, and 900 young doctors went on a 21-hour strike in support of their two superiors. At almost the same time, Mother Teresa visited the hospital, and the city, to bring spiritual comfort. As news of the factory's resumption began to spread, even patients who could hardly walk checked out of the hospital and joined the mass exodus. Wards that had been overflowing just one week earlier were left almost...