Brief report on the conference

Bhopal Gas Tragedy and its effects on process safety

This conference was organized by the Department of

Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology,

Kanpur on the 20th anniversary of the disaster so that the

world does not forget about it and lessons learnt continue to

guide the industry to improve its safety performance. The

conference had three main aims:

1. To analyse the accident as it unfolded on the dreadful

night;

2. To discuss the progress made in chemical industry safety

since the accident by way of laws, education, research,

etc.;

3. To attempt to chart future direction towards achieving

the aim of zero accident.

The conference generated a tremendous interest world-

wide. Over 50% of the 140 delegates came from abroad

representing 25 countries: Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Fin-

land, France, Germany, Holland, Hong Kong, Indonesia,

Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Norway, Poland, Qatar,

Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Switzer-

land, Taiwan, UK, USA. The tragedy had various aspects

and not just the technological ones. This was amply proved

by the vastly different back ground of the participants:

Academicians, accident investigators, consultants, doctors,

former Mayor of Bhopal, Government executives, industry

experts, insurance executives, journalists, lawyers, former

Chief of Police of Bhopal, researchers, safety law

enforcement people, etc. Out of over 120 papers received,

approximately 85 were accepted after review.

Dr Sanjay G. Dhande, Director, IIT, Kanpur inaugurated

the conference on December 1st, 2004 morning. He

encouraged the participants to work harder in making the

chemical industry very safe and promised to provide all

the support necessary towards that goal. The Chief Guest

was Mr D. S. Mathur, Director (Refineries), Hindustan

Petroleum Corporation Ltd, the over $16 billion company.

Referring to the large chemical plants that dot the country

and which scare people living nearby, he exhorted the

participants to work towards a goal of making the plants

such that, while continuing to produce the products on

which our life and living so much depends, they are neither

seen, nor heard, nor produce any kind of smell. Earlier,

0950-4230/$ - see front matter q 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.jlp.2005.07.029

Prof. Ashutosh Sharma, Head of Chemical Engineering

Department, IIT Kanpur, while welcoming the delegates,

stated how the department was the first one in Asia to

recognize the importance of process safety and offer a full

one-semester elective course to students. Prof. J. P. Gupta,

Conference Convenor, expressed a hope that this conference

would make the attendees resolve to do their utmost to make

the process industry safer and to improve its public image.

He thanked the Director Prof. Dhande, the Chef Guest Mr

Mathur and the Head of Department Prof. Sharma for their

encouraging statements at inauguration; the participants for

having come from all over the world to demonstrate their

solidarity with the still suffering victims of the Bhopal

tragedy; and all those who helped in organising the

conference.

The conference started with a Plenary Session on the

Bhopal Gas Tragedy. Mr T. R. Chauhan1 (India), ex-

operator, Carbide’s MIC plant in Bhopal, told of the

unfolding of the accident, the reduction in manpower and

training. His book ‘Bhopal—The Inside Story’, the only one

out of over a dozen books, written by a technical person

working at the company, is a must-read for anyone wanting

to know about the disaster. This book was distributed to the

participants. The then Bhopal Mayor, Dr R. K. Bisarya

(India) and the then Bhopal Police Chief, Mr Swaraj Puri

(India) narrated the sequence of horrible events that night

and how they valiantly fought to alleviate the sufferings of

the victims. Mr Puri was out all through the night with his

limited force of people to evacuate the victims and transport

them to the hospitals. He did not know the dangerous

properties of the gas that had been released so he breathed it

too and, to this day, continues to suffer with the after effects.

Ms Ingrid Eckerman (Sweden), of the erstwhile Inter-

national Medical Commission on Bhopal, analysed the

causes and consequences of the Bhopal gas leak and

described the epidemiological and clinical research. Her

analysis was very incisive and deep. Her new book ‘The

Bhopal Saga’, was put on display along with the process

safety related publications of the Center for Chemical

Process Safety, NY and the Institution of Chemical

Engineers, UK. Mr Sathyu Sarangi of the Sambhavna

Trust, Bhopal, is known globally for his continued efforts

Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 18 (2005) 197–199

www.elsevier.com/locate/jlp

1 Papers of authors whose names are in bold are included in this special

issue.

Brief report on the conference / Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 18 (2005) 197–199198

made on behalf of the victims. He had reached Bhopal

the day after the disaster in 1984 leaving his PhD studies

in between, and has been in Bhopal ever since working

for the victims. His papers on the medical response and

the state of health and care of the victims of the disaster

were based on in-depth studies carried out by him and

his colleagues over the last many years. He also pointed

out the way forward to a meaningful treatment

comprising of yoga, traditional medicines which have

no side effects and modern medicines. The Sambhavna

Trust has successfully treated many hundreds of victims

that could not benefit from the allopathic medicines. His

work gets international support. Dr S. Muralidhar, Senior

Advocate, Supreme Court of India, is currently fighting,

and winning, the cases of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy

victims. He discussed the current status of the cases and

is hopeful of getting further relief to the victims. The

Supreme Court has ordered the distribution of remaining

compensation funds and provision of potable water to the

communities surrounding the Union Carbide plant that

are affected by the polluted water.

This Plenary Session was followed by an exhibition of

photographs of the Bhopal tragedy and aftermath by the

renowned photographer Mr Raghu Rai. These photos

graphically portray the deaths and suffering immediately

after the gas release as well as after many years. Ms.

Carolyn Merritt, Chair, US Chemical Safety and Hazard

Investigation Board, whose organisation, created by the US

Senate after the Bhopal accident, investigates the accidents

in the US, inaugurated the exhibition. She called on all the

stakeholders to work towards making the process industry

safer. The exhibition, open to public, attracted visitors from

the city as well as busloads of students from nearby schools.

Many of these photographs along with some other related

ones (not exhibited) were distributed with the conference

proceedings on a CD to all the participants. Photographs

have permission to be reproduced for use in professional

activities/display.

There were two sessions of Keynote lectures and 12

sessions of paper presentations held between post-lunch

period on 1st December till pre-lunch period on 3rd

December. These presentations have been summarized in

the next article. Reports on the conference and papers

presented are also available at the conference website

www.iitk.ac.in/che/jpg/bhopaliz.htm.

1. Concluding session

This being December 3rd was the exact 20th anniversary

of the tragedy. All the participants stood in silence for 1 min

to pay homage to the dead and to wish speedy recovery to

the suffering.

In this session, the Chairman of each of the 15 sessions

highlighted the important contributions/comments made by

the various speakers in their sessions. This is presented in the

next article. The general mood of the conference was well

summarized by Mr Dennis Hendershot (Rohm & Haas):

‘From the discussion in the Plenary Session .it has

become clear to me that the conference title really should be

‘International Conference on the 20th Anniversary of the

Beginning of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy.’ This is an important

difference. The Bhopal tragedy is NOT over. Its effects on

people’s lives have continued through these 20 years,

continue today, and the tragedy will not be over in my

lifetime, and not in my children’s lifetime. Bhopal is not an

incident; it is a catastrophic and irreversible change to the

lives of people, a community, a country, a company and

industry, the world. And it is not over.

‘Thinking some more about the presentations, the Bhopal

tragedy did not begin 20 years ago. It began years before

[when] actions and events established the conditions that

ultimately caused the gas release on December 03, 1984.

Conditions leading to the incident were recognized, but not

corrected.

‘So what do we do to prevent future tragedies? We have

made great progress, but not enough. We need to continue to

work to establish a safety culture throughout the chemical

enterprise: in companies, education, government, commu-

nities—all stake holders. In companies, the culture must be

pervasive—from the Chairman of the Board to every

employee in every location, everywhere.Safety is a

journey, not a place, and progress will never be enough.

.We, in the process safety community must continue

current efforts and develop new ways to convince every-

body in the chemical enterprise that effective safety and

environmental performance is essential to the survival of the

industry.’

There was a general desire to stay involved with the

developments at Bhopal and not to simply disband as often

happens after a conference is over. The participants wished

to help the victims in various ways and to ensure that the

tragedy is not forgotten. Hence, a group was formed to carry

on the mandate and a ‘Conference Statement’ was drafted.

The same is available in JLPPI vol. 18 issue 3, pp 192–193

and also on the conference website noted above. It has

numerous points of interest to all the stakeholders:

Governments, Industry, Communities, Universities and the

Media.

2. Post conference tour of Bhopal

A group of 35 participants from 12 countries travelled to

Bhopal on the night of December 3 to visit the Union

Carbide plant to see for themselves the disaster it had

caused. Two former workers of the plant, Mr Kamal Pareek

and Mr T. R. Chouhan guided them through the site giving

details of plant operation and the toll that severe cost cutting

had started to take much before the disaster. They also

narrated the unfolding of the disaster that fateful night. The

visitors were bewildered that Union Carbide could be so

Brief report on the conference / Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 18 (2005) 197–199 199

careless with regards to the safety of the personnel and the

community nearby, and also so unresponsive to clean up the

site. They met Dr Sathpathy who had carried out numerous

autopsies on the immediate victims and those who

continued to die years later of the complications caused

by inhaling the MIC gas on the night of the disaster. He

talked about the medico legal case. The visitors saw the

viscera of aborted fetuses with unbelievable genetic

mutations caused by the gas inhaled by their mothers.

3. Post-conference developments

There have been several interesting developments. The

local press had carried numerous write-ups on the

conference and interviews with several of the participants.

There were detailed reports about the conference in the

Chemical Weekly (Bombay), Chemical and Engineering

News (C&EN, Washington DC), Chemical Industry Digest

(Bombay), Preventique (France), Schadenspiegel (Munich

Re magazine, German and English Editions). There were

references to it in testimony to the US Senate Committee

and in articles in Hydrocarbon Processing, Hydrocarbon

Asia, Christian Science Monitor, US EPA bulletin, etc.

Some articles are available at the website noted above.

Some of the participants have given detailed presentations

to their colleagues/students along with the photos provided

on the conference CD. Thus, the conference has generated

renewed interest in the tragedy hoping that the still suffering

victims will see light at the end of the tunnel and all the

stakeholders will work to make the chemical industry safer.

Incidentally, Union Carbide’s spokesman Mr Sprick

claimed that more than $2 million were spent by their

Indian subsidiary UCIL on cleanup at the site (C&EN

January 24, 2005, p 29) However, Union Carbide has not

responded to a ‘Letter to Editor’ (C&EN February 14, 2005,

page 4) asking for details of the cleanup done. Many in

Bhopal called it an exercise in cover-up rather than cleanup.

Acknowledgements

The Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd, Oil &

Natural Gas Commission, Bharat Petroleum Corporation

Ltd and Senes Ltd financially supported the conference. It

was endorsed by a large number of professional organiz-

ations: Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers, Mary Kay

O’Connor Process Safety Center, Institution of Chemical

Engineers (UK), American Institute of Chemical Engineers,

Center for Chemical Process Safety, European Safety

Management Group, Chemical Safety and Hazard Investi-

gation Board, US. Environment Protection Agency,

National Safety Council (UP Chapter), American Chemistry

Council, European Process Safety Centre, Singapore Loss

Prevention Association and Health and Safety Executive.

Prof. Sam Mannan, Director, Mary Kay O’Connor

Process Safety Center (USA) was very enthusiastic about

and supportive of the conference from the very beginning.

The administration of IIT Kanpur, numerous colleagues and

dozens of graduate students at IIT Kanpur lent their full

support and worked tirelessly to make the conference a

success.

Ms L. Morris and her colleagues at Elsevier have been

most cooperative in bringing this special issue of JLPPI.

J.P. Gupta*

Conference Coordinator and Guest Editor

Department of Chemical Engineering,

Indian Institute of Technology,

Kanpur 208 016, India

E-mail address: jpg@iitk.ac.in

* Tel.: C91 512 2597629; fax: C91 512 2590104.