Search

This book offers a critical theory of hazards, which the Bhopal tragedy would serve to highlight. It provides a general model of how hazards existed in Bhopal come to be defined and symbolically manipulated—through the institutionalized use of expert knowledge and political persuasion.

The book studies the cultural texts—fiction, protest effigies, photographs, films, reportage, eyewitness accounts, campaign posters and reports—produced around the world's worst industrial disaster: the Bhopal tragedy of 1984. It makes a case for an ecological Gothic, wherein the city, its landscape and its people are Gothicized. After tracing the history of the disaster as a history of negligence, the book proceeds in later chapters to study the coverage of the events themselves by eyewitnesses and survivors, and the remnants, in various forms, of the disaster – the haunting – within human bodies and nature. Finally, it examines the industrial ruins and the mobilization of protests against Union Carbide.

Selected by Choice magazine as an Outstanding Academic TitleThe 1984 lethal gas leak at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, may be the most extensively studied industrial disaster in history. In a departure from earlier studies that have focused primarily on the causes of the catastrophe, Sheila Jasanoff and the contributors to this volume critically examine the consequences of the accident.

The story of the investigation of the MIC toxic gas tragedy in Bhopal (more than 3,700 deaths)and the LPG disaster in Mexico City (500 fatalities), the difficult circumstances of the investigations and the results. Have we learned any lessons? Unique information like the original technical drawings of the Bhopal plant. Information about LPG safety, also by describing other LPG disasters. Various explosions (BLEVE's) of LPG road tankers are discussed. The underlying causes of the failure of safety management. Developments in 25 years are analysed. The disasters of 1984, compared with more recent incidents, such as an explosion in a furnace (Geleen, 2003), and the refinery disaster in Texas (USA) in 2005. Land use planning policies failed dramatically in Mexico and Bhopal. The existing (QRA) policy in Europe for “safe distances” around plants with hazardous substances will prevent that large number of victims are likely. However, the underlying causes of Mexico City and Bhopal are still present. Process Safety Annexes: Contemporary methods for process safety as HAZOP, LOPA, SIL and incident investigation (Tripod) are described and elaborated through examples.

On December 2-3, 1984, India witnessed arguably the world s worst industrial disaster in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, which continues to this day as an economic, medical, environmental, and political disaster. Surviving Bhopal draws on oral testimonials of the affected community and analyzes the cause and aftermath of the disaster from the perspective of those who suffered the severe consequences of systemic failure and travesty of justice. The event resulted in a resistance movement, led by women, against corporate and state power. Mukherjee explores the underlying gender politics, showing how activism challenged and redefined the contemporary model of development.

A gripping, kaleidoscopic account of a horrific industrial disaster that shook the world, from wold-renowned humanitarian and internationally bestselling author Dominique Lapierre.It was December 3, 1984. In the ancient city of Bhopal, a cloud of toxic gas escaped from an American pesticide plant, killing and injuring thousands of people. When the noxious clouds cleared, the worst industrial disaster in history had taken place. Now, Dominique Lapierre brings the hundreds of characters, conflicts, and adventures together in an unforgettable tale of love and hope. Readers will meet the poetry-loving factory worker who unleashes the apocalypse, the young Indian bride who was to be married that terrible night, and the doctors who died that night saving others.

The 1984 explosion of the Union Carbide chemical plant in Bhopal, India was undisputedly one of the world's worst industrial disasters. Some have argued that the resulting litigation provided an'innovative model'for dealing with the global distribution of technological risk; others consider the disaster a turning point in environmental legislation; still others argue that Bhopal is what globalization looks like on the ground. Kim Fortun explores these claims by focusing on the dynamics and paradoxes of advocacy in competing power domains. She moves from hospitals in India to meetings with lawyers, corporate executives, and environmental justice activists in the United States to show how the disaster and its effects remain with us. Spiraling outward from the victims'stories, the innovative narrative sheds light on the way advocacy works within a complex global system, calling into question conventional notions of responsibility and ethical conduct. Revealing the hopes and frustrations of advocacy, this moving work also counters the tendency to think of Bhopal as an isolated incident that'can't happen here.'