Word: bhopal
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...three cases face a common dilemma: industrial dangers. Those hazards can be divided into two rough categories: primary and secondary disasters. Primary disasters are the quick explosions, fires or leaks that strike with the surprise of a hurricane, killing instantly and widely. The tragedy last week at Bhopal, when deadly gas escaped from a Union Carbide plant, was of the primary variety. Such violent, large-scale tragedies are dramatic and terrible, but extremely rare, particularly in developed nations like the U.S. The occasional deaths that do occur in those mishaps are almost always confined to employees who were on-site...
...tragic wake of Bhopal, safety reviews are under way in most of the U.S., the world's biggest producer and user of MIC and other pesticides. Nearly a billion tons of pesticides and herbicides, comprising 225 different chemicals, was produced in the U.S. last year, and an additional 79 million lbs. was imported. MIC is stored or used at plants in New York, West Virginia, Texas, Alabama and Georgia. Those insecticides not dependent on the compound, like malathion, are also construct ed of toxic molecules. Dow Chemical Co., one of the nation's largest producers of agricultural...
...centers. Especially overseas, those factories often become magnets, attracting other business and housing. Says Jeffrey Leonard, senior associate at the Washington-based Conservation Foundation: "Many plants are located on the outskirts of cities only to have the sites overrun by bursting populations." Union Carbide officials point out that the Bhopal factory was built in the early 1970s on a site surrounded by unused public land, but a community grew up around it. At the .Pemex plant in Mexico, where an explosion killed at least 452 people last month, a city of shanties developed in the 20 years after the facility...
...local rehabilitation center; and 4,000 students attend nearby West Virginia State College. The town has three restaurants, two gas stations, one barbershop and a sprawling Union Carbide plant. It is the only site in the U.S. that produces methyl isocyanate, the deadly chemical that wafted through Bhopal, India...
...Bhopal disaster was both a human tragedy of historic proportions and a nightmare for one of the largest and best-known U.S. corporations. The horrible dimensions of the accident last week stunned Union Carbide's executives, employees and shareholders. Jittery investors dumped the company's stock, which plunged 12 points to close the week at 37. But the problems for the company may be only beginning. Union Carbide faces the prospect of a long, costly series of lawsuits that could endanger the corporation's financial future...