Corporate Corruption vs. Scary Planes

It’s Double Upload Day! Now that you’ve finished Olivia’s first Heavy Hitter episode in our Environment series, we figured it’d be nice to wind down with a return to one of our favorite minisode segments: Freak Accidents.

Olivia and I both brought a historical accident to the table for this, and in typical fashion Olivia decided on something catastrophic with far-reaching global consequences. What we didn’t anticipate was that Olivia’s accident would turn into what essentially became an hour and five minute heavy hitter presentation on the Bhopal disaster.

Ooh, Sounds Terrible

You bet it was, buddy.

Olivia goes into incredible detail about what lead to the infamous disaster in the episode (if you want to read more about it, this New York Times article breaks it down), but here’s the summary in a nutshell:

The Union Carbide Pesticide Plant in Bhopal, India had fallen on hard times. While profitable when it was built in the late 60s, it had become less so by the time the 80s rolled around. Financial hardship led to budget cuts in the form of dissolution of safety measures and layoffs of the only employees who understood those safety measures. New and remaining employees testified to a lack of training in all areas, including safety. Even worse, an Union inspection revealed serious safety deficits that required immediate remedy, and even though the Chief Operating Officer claims these remedies were made, the employees maintain that the new safety measures were never actually implemented.

Wonderful. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

I’m so glad you asked.

Union Carbide had a tank reserve of a chemical called methyl isocyanate, which is a compound used in pesticides and, notably, tear gas. It is highly toxic when inhaled, can be absorbed through the skin, and has an extremely low flashpoint. On contact with water, it creates a violent exothermic reaction, so it is generally stored at 50-60% capacity and with other chemicals to prevent any reaction with water. It was also meant to be stored with certain safety precautions such as a giant chemical freezer to slow potential chemical reactions, but this had been shut off years ago to preserve power and cut costs.

A leak in the methyl isocyanate containment was first noticed at 11pm by senior operator Suman Dey, who noticed the pressure gauge on the container was reading five times what it should. But he thought nothing of it - apparently the equipment used by Union Carbide was so desperately out of date, it malfunctioned in similar ways regularly. As the night wore on, multiple others observed the leak and dismissed it as an error, neglecting to tell anyone about the readings. When the company’s chemist finally investigated the readings after their 12:35 tea break, they realized something was truly wrong and released the system’s emergency valve and released highly poisonous gas into the air.

There were two safety measures that would have mitigated the severity of the pollution: a flare tower and a vent scrubber. If either had been installed, it would have cut the gas concentration by enough to avoid disaster. But neither were scaled to deal with a leak of this magnitude, so on the night of December 2, 1984 thirty tons of methyl isocyanate gas was released into the air.

Oh, Shit.

“Oh shit” is right, my friends.

Now, this was bad enough. The air was now completely poisoned, and the residents of the nearby city had no idea. But the next two critical steps are what turned this from a dangerous situation to a full-blown disaster. First, the citizens had been conditioned to believe that the emergency leak alarm system was no big deal. They had been exposed to minor leaks in the past, and therefore believed that the alarm was no more than a formality. Even so, the alarm didn’t even sound until 2 hours after the leak began. They were in the dark, and they had been fully mislead about the meaning of the alarm.

Second, Union Carbide’s representatives patently lied to the authorities when calls began coming in about citizens with symptoms of methyl isocyanate poisoning. For two hours they lied, claiming that they had no knowledge of a leak. It wasn’t until the tank was completely emptied that they finally confessed that there had been a leak, “but thankfully it had been plugged.”

Meanwhile, the local hospitals were flooded with new patients with respiratory symptoms. For one reason or another, the hospitals were not aware of the leak and began treating for phosgene and ammonia poisoning. By the time Union Carbide informed the hospitals of the truth, it had been hours - and the hospitals did not have access to an antidote for methyl isocyanate.

It is theorized that, if citizens had been warned to stay indoors, seal doorways, close windows, etc., thousands of lives could have been saved that night. Instead, a combination of poor communication, deliberate lies, and corporate corruption took the lives of what is estimated to be 3-7,000 people that night, and 15,000 more since due to direct effects. It is estimated that another 1-500,000 people still live with the effects of that leak today, and it is known as the worst man-made environmental disaster of all time.

But They Were Brought to Justice, Right?

Well…

The plant is abandoned now, and continues to leak hazardous chemicals into the ground and water to this day. The aquatic ecosystem has been completely poisoned, which has damaged Bhopal’s fishing economy. Union Carbide paid the Indian government $500 million, which in turn was given to the surviving victims of the disaster in the form of $500-1000 per person. Which, in my humble opinion, is not nearly enough. The $500 million was essentially hush money to the Indian government, and it worked; the company was bought, and therefore can’t be held responsible for the atrocities committed that night. The only real relief fund was collected through taxpayers, not the government or Union Carbide themselves.

So no, not really.

This is an Incredibly Dark Freak Accident, Olivia

She knows.

Brooke’s, on the other hand, was about a superhuman emergency airlift paramedic who survived a pressure breach in his aircraft.

Woah, What?

Yeah!

Chris Fogg was performing an emergency evacuation job from Twin Falls, Idaho to Seattle, Washington when, for no discernible reason, the window in the cabin exploded, sucking the upper half of his body through the window. Somehow, he managed to brace his left arm on the ceiling of the plane and his knees on the wall, leveraging enough air between the window and his torso to break the seal. His head had been cut open on the window, so he managed to stand up and grab a pillow from his patient and stem the bleeding while he made sure the patient was safe. Meanwhile, basically all his personal items and equipment is sucked through the plane and out the window Mission Impossible-style. He wills himself to not pass out from the pressure change and tends to his patient, all while his name badge, glasses, and charting equipment is ripped off of him and his head is blood-geysering into a pillow.

This Is Very Gross and Cool

You can say that again. My man Chris Fogg survives this as the pilot makes an emergency stop, is rushed to the hospital, receives 13 stitches, and what does he do the next morning?

This legend of a man goes to work.

This Is Dystopian

Yeah, I totally agree, but also — WHAT A BEAST.

To his credit, Chris Fogg didn’t seem terribly traumatized by the whole thing. He simply chalked it up to that it “wasn’t his day to die.” The most emotion he expressed about the matter was that it was “pretty scary, I’ll tell you that” as he recounts seeing his headphones fly off his head and hit the back of the plane.

Now, how many people can say they saw that and lived to tell the tale? And returned to their 9-5 the next day?

Only Chris Fogg, my new hero.