Word: methyl
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...teaches that there is no avoiding that hazard, and no point in trying; one only trusts that the gods in the machines will give a good deal more than they take away. But the problem is not purely mystical either. If social advancement lies in something as lethal as methyl isocyanate, it only argues for handling with the greatest care. After this tragedy is out of the news, and the lawsuits are filed, and the dead cremated, things ought to be made considerably safer than they were before Bhopal. Human progress, human frailty. Ashes float in the air near...
...first sign that something was wrong came at 11 p.m. A worker at the Union Carbide pesticide plant on the outskirts of Bhopal (pop. 672,000), an industrial city 466 miles south of New Delhi, noticed that pressure was building up in a tank containing 45 tons of methyl isocyanate, a deadly chemical used to make pesticides. At 56 minutes past midnight, the substance began escaping into the air from a faulty valve. For almost an hour, the gas formed a vast, dense fog of death that drifted toward Bhopal...
...weak to withstand the poison. A number of the survivors were permanently blinded, others suffered serious lesions in their nasal and bronchial passages. Doctors also noticed concussions, paralysis and signs of epilepsy, suggesting, they said, the presence of some other chemical-perhaps phosgene, which is used to make methyl isocyanate. Six days after the accident, patients were still arriving at Hamidia Hospital at the rate of one a minute, many of them doubled over with racking coughs, gasping for breath or convulsed with violent spasms that brought a red froth to the lips...
...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 pesticides known as Sevin and Temik. At the Bhopal facility it was stored in three double-walled, stainless steel tanks, buried mostly underground to limit leakage in the event of an accident and to help shield them from air temperatures that could soar to 120° F in summer. Refrigerated to keep...
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 plant's labor union, the scrubber was also in the process of being fixed. To make matters worse, a critical panel in the control room had been removed, perhaps as part of the maintenance program, thus preventing the leak from showing up on monitors...