Disaster at Bhopal
In our history, there are numerous tragedies happened which caused lives of many innocent people. These untoward incidents mainly caused by human errors and limitations. Some incidents that occurred like gas leakages and radioactive materials exposure also took its place in the history as one of the calamities that destroyed civilian lives. Other factors that might have contributed to the tragedies include the usage of substandard materials and low quality process controls. Incompetent people on a particular plant that handles critical position is also one possible factor in some accidents that occurred in the past.
On the other hand there are things that still go the wrong way even those factors were already taken carefully into consideration. The tragedy that happened in Bhopal, India is a concrete example of a manufacturing plant disaster that caused many fatalities and injuries to many people. Many people mentioned that this catastrophe was one of the worst tragedy ever happened in human history. A rough estimate of 16, 000 people were killed by the occurrence of this incident in India.
The disaster happened in the year 1984 when a pesticide manufacturing plant emitted tons of chemical gases in the heart of the community where residences were exposed with these harmful emissions. After this incident, reforms were made by the Indian government to avoid another calamity like this to happen. These reforms were based on several inputs and studies conducted about the Bhopal tragedy. One of the subjects that would surely be included in the study made about the aforementioned disaster in Bhopal is the list of factors that contributed to this lamenting event that happened in India.
There are a lot of factors that can be enumerated as far as the Bhopal tragedy is concerned. One possible cause is the utilization of hazardous chemicals in processing the plant outputs instead of using less-dangerous chemicals. In the first place, people whose responsible to the main operation of the plant should have initiated to call the attention of the company to stop using such chemicals that can surely be lethal for those who will be exposed to it. Another factor is the mishandling of such chemicals wherein the chemicals should have stored in adequate containers to ensure the safety in their work.
Low maintenance policies in the plant facilities are also an aspect that might have contributed also in the said tragedy. There should be standardization in every processes involved in the plant operation particularly on the supervision of the chemical gases being used by the company. Safety engineering is always included in every process and taking these principles lightly might also have degraded the plant facilities and operation. Unfortunately, these safety procedures were taken lightly by those people responsible on the actual operation of the site.
In addition to that, the fact that the plant was located in a highly populated area is a one big lapse in judgment to those people who were responsible on the operation of the plant. Before this pesticide plant was built, planning engineers should have taken into consideration the strategic location of the plant by carefully studying the pros and cons of the said actions that they should take. The government should have taken its side with regards to the construction of this particular site in a less populated area or community.
An obvious problem that also contributed to the problem is the cutting of expenses on the system maintenance, causing poor supervision on the status of the plant. Disaster preparedness programs were also not available during that time, making the people uninformed of the things that they should do once these untoward incidents happen. All in all, corporate responsibility should always come first before profiting to ensure safety in the whole operation of any plant or factory. By this principle, any tragedy may still happen but only little damage will be created by any of the disaster that may occur.
