Editorial

Bhopal Gas Tragedy and its effects on process safety

The Bhopal Gas Tragedy was the worst-ever industrial

disaster. Forty-one tonnes of deadly methyl isocyanate gas and

its reaction products were released in to the air on the midnight

of December 2–3, 1984 from the Union Carbide plant in

Bhopal, India. It resulted in the immediate death of several

thousand people and caused untold sufferings to hundreds of

thousands. Quoting Charles Perrow, Yale University (Perrow,

1999) ‘The accident that released deadly methyl isocyanate

gas (MIC) in Union Carbide’s Bhopal, India, plant in

December 1984, resulting in atleast 4000 ‘prompt’ deaths

and over 200,000 injuries, was for me the most theoretically

significant catastrophe.In the words of one of the most

interesting cliches in this business, ‘It was an accident waiting

to happen’. But .equally common cliche ‘we were lucky it

was not worse’ for once does not hold. Bhopal was that rare

accident that could hardly have been worse; they are hard to

arrange’. He calls it the ‘Union Carbide Factor’.

The death toll, since then, has reached over 20,000 with

victims dying from the complications caused by inhaling the

gas that night. Over 120,000 continue to still suffer.

The hazardous chemicals buried at the company site when

the plants were operating and those left behind after the

disaster in 1984, have polluted the soil and underground

water, severely affecting the health of a large number of

people living in the vicinity who have no other source of

water. Thus, the Bhopal Gas Tragedy has turned out to be

the world’s worst pollution disaster as well.

On the 20th anniversary of the disaster in December

2004, articles and news stories appeared in all the major

newspapers and the technical press in India and in many

other countries. There was a vast coverage by the visual

media as well. BBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

and the National Geographic released new documentaries.

A couple of new books were also released.

Since the Bhopal disaster, the interest in process safety

has been increasing. Elective or compulsory courses are

taught in some universities. Active researchers are to be

found in several countries. Specialized International

conferences on process safety are also held.

So far so good. With very little process safety activity up

until 1984, any increase is to be genuinely welcomed.

But have we done enough? Not by a long shot. The new

discipline of Process Safety is emerging at an excruciating

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slow pace. The number of converts to it in any country can

be counted on the fingers of one hand. Much of that has

occurred due to accreditation requirement in some

countries. Within chemical engineering faculties, very

few, if any, working in the areas of catalysis, reaction

kinetics, process control, thermodynamics, transport

phenomena, etc. have extended their research to include

the aspects of process safety. To quote Cussler, et al. (2002),

‘Professors are by nature conservative, in that they conserve

what they are good at doing.’ All the books and courses in

these subjects also generally do not account for deviations

from normal behaviour while most of the accidents in

process industry are the results of such deviations.

Specialized conferences in these areas do not discuss as to

how they can make the process industry safer even though

these specialized fields play a very significant role in the

design and/or operations of the chemical industry. What a

perfect chemical engineering world! This, while the

academicians know that from the very first day a chemical

engineer enters a job, he/she will have to be concerned with

safety, while the other chemical engineering subjects taught

at colleges take a back seat and some may never be of any

use. Thus, we are guilty of sending a half-baked product to

the industry and assume that industry will teach the new

recruits about this important subject. That is, they will learn

it on the job. We should know that learning from accidents

is very costly.

In the above context, Gygax’s message to the universities

is still very valid: “Chemical Reaction Engineering can be

defined as the art of conducting chemical processes

selectively, effectively and safely.To achieve these

goals, the chemistry and physics of the reacting system

are studied.In most Chemical Engineering text books,

these efforts are directed primarily to the conversion of the

materials into products under operational conditions.For

safe process operation, it is however equally important to

extend Chemical Engineering Principles to the study of

failure conditions. Only if runaway scenarios are kept in

focus can the best process design concepts be evaluated.

.It is the responsibility of the universities to be leaders

in promoting it through their Chemical Engineering

courses” (Gygax, 1988).

It is not that the chemical engineering faculty does not

get into newer areas. The moves to biosciences, molecular

genetics, nano engineering, etc. in the recent past are

Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 18 (2005) 195–196

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Editorial / Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 18 (2005) 195–196196

examples of the dynamic nature of the profession, once it

decides to act. It is interesting to note that safety is of

concern even in these areas: both in production and in use.

US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board

(CSB) has been investigating chemical accidents in the US

since 1998. In a Senate hearing held in January 2005, the

CSB Chair, Ms Carolyn Merritt stated (Merritt, 2005) ‘.I

am disturbed by what the CSB’s investigations have shown.

In the cases we have examined, preparations for chemical

emergencies were found to be uneven and inadequate.

.The lack of preparation potentially leaves our country

vulnerable to the effects of both chemical accidents and

possible acts of terrorism. .if such a disaster should

happen, we must be prepared to respond quickly and

effectively. The time for planning is now, not after a

tragedy..’

The chemical engineering faculty has a significant role in

this planning. Their teaching and research into process

safety including in Inherently Safer Design and Process

Intensification, will make the chemical industry less

attractive to terrorists, make the industry safer to operate

and easier to mitigate the consequences of any accident. The

plant size as well as storage inventory would reduce

significantly, reducing the capital and operating costs by

an order of magnitude. Stankiewicz and Moulin (Stankie-

wicz & Moulin, 2000) give a very interesting comparison of

a present-day refinery and an intensified one of the future.

The latter looks from the outside as clean as an electronics

plant. One cannot see the equipment, hear it or smell the

chemicals!

The chemical industry in the US was worth $460 billion

in 2000, employed over a million directly and many

millions indirectly, contributed the maximum to the exports,

and is involved in all aspects of daily life and living

(American chemistry council, 2002). It is true in most major

countries. Yet, its reputation is not as high as the above

figures would dictate. The number of students opting for

chemical engineering and the number and amounts of

research grants are far less than in many other engineering

fields, biological and health sciences, chemistry and

physics. Accidents anywhere rattle people all over the

world, thus universally reducing the attraction for chemical

engineering.

Chemical Engineers should not have a smug feeling that

because our products are so pervasive in society, we should

be subject to lesser scrutiny and some accidents should be

accepted as a small price to pay. Prausnitz’s comments are

very timely (Prausnitz, 2001): ‘.Our unavoidable task is

to serve society. We need to re-examine ourselves and

be concerned with how we are seen by others. .Companies

should realize that business is not apart from but a part of

culture. .While society eagerly uses chemical products, it

will not tolerate any failures. The challenge of postmodern-

ism to chemical engineers is: Stop pollution and make sure

your processes and products are totally safe’.

It would be good for the profession to become proactive

in process safety before public outcry forces very restrictive

legislation, especially after 9/11 when large chemical

facilities are also considered to be attractive targets for the

terrorists. Staying ahead of legislation brings respect to a

profession, not when forced to comply with it. It is therefore

imperative that the safety culture should become more

pervasive amongst companies, governments, communities,

academics, media, judiciary, .all the stake holders at all

levels all over the world. International organisations need to

become more active as well. Several other related points

in an earlier invited editorial would interest the readers of

this one (Gupta, 2003).

The conference at Kanpur did bring a dedicated and

devoted group of researchers and industry participants.

Cloning many more of the type will not violate any law

against cloning but will be a very welcome step.

This special issue of the journal is dedicated to those who

lost their lives and to those who continue to suffer due to the

Bhopal Gas Tragedy.

References

Perrow, C. (1999). Normal Accidents. Princeton: Princeton University Press

p. 356.

Cussler, E. L., et al. (2002). Refocusing Chemical Engineering. Chemical

Engineering Progress, 98(1), 26S.

Gygax, R. (1988). Chemical Reaction Engineering for Safety. Chemical

Engineering Science, 43(8), 1759.

Merritt, C.(2005). Testimony before the U.S. Senate Homeland Security

and Governmental Affairs Committee, Washington DC. April 27, 2005.

Stankiewicz, A. I., & Moulin, J. A. (2000). Process Intensification

transforming Chemical Engineering. Chemical Engineering Progress,

96(1), 22.

American Chemistry Council (2002), Protecting a Nation—Homeland

Defence and the Business of Chemistry, Arlington, VA, April 2002, p. 3.

Prausnitz, J. M. (2001). Chemical Engineering and the Postmodern World,

15th P.V. Danckwerts Memorial Lecture. Trans IChemE (UK)

Chemical Engineering Research and Design, 79(A), 777.

Gupta, J. P. (2003). Bhopal: .eighteen, going on nineteen and fading?

Invited Guest Editorial. Trans IChemE (UK), Process Safety and

Environmental Protection, 81(B), 227.

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.