Word: methyl
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Plant safety procedures were inadequate to deal with a large-scale leak of the deadly methyl isocyanate, or MIC, despite the fact that the dangers such a leak would pose were known. Nor had any precautions been taken to protect people living near the plant site. Although a safety survey conducted by experts from Union Carbide headquarters in 1982 identified major hazards that could lead to serious incidents, no procedures were developed for alerting or evacuating the population that would be affected by an accident...
Could it happen here? That was the question asked by many Americans after last month's disaster at a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, in which a leak of poisonous methyl isocyanate gas killed more than 2,000 people. Two reports released last week about a similar Union Carbide plant in Institute, W. Va., raised new worries. In one, the Environmental Protection Agency found that methyl isocyanate had leaked from the plant 28 times from 1980 to 1984, apparently in small quantities. The EPA is investigating...
...second was written by Union Carbide inspectors and released by Congressman Henry Waxman. It warned that a "runaway reaction" at a tank containing methyl isocyanate could lead to a "catastrophic failure" of the tank. A Union Carbide spokesman said the company took corrective action, but did not inform the Indian plant because it used a different cooling system...
...week after 45 tons of methyl isocyanate leaked out of the plant, leaving more than 2,500 people dead in the worst industrial disaster ever, the facility was preparing to resume operations temporarily. About 15 tons of the deadly chemical still remained in storage tank No. 619. If it were allowed to stay there indefinitely, it could turn into gas and start leaking again. After much deliberation, a team of top Indian and American scientists decided that the safest solution was to reopen the facility for five days or so, just long enough to process the excess methyl isocyanate into...
...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 by last June. A safety valve on a methyl isocyanate storage tank was still malfunctioning, they conceded, but it was nowhere near the tank that caused the disastrous leak. The firm did acknowledge that no U.S. supervisor had visited the Bhopal plant since the 1982 inspection, and no major audit of the facility had been undertaken in more than...