Five Past Midnight in Bhopal - Dominique Lapierre [22]
“Often they would manage to snatch our entire day’s takings,” Padmini would say. “Then I would go home empty-handed and my mother and brother Gopal would start crying. Sometimes when the trains were running late, I would spend the night with Dilip and his gang in the station. When it was very cold, Dilip would light a fire on the platform. We would lie down next to the flames to sleep until the next train came through. There were times too when we slept in other stations, at Nagpur, Itarsi or Indore, waiting for a train to take us back to Bhopal.”
It was in one of these stations that one night Dilip and his companions would lose their little Adivasi sister.
9
A Poison That Smelled Like Boiled Cabbage
FATAL IF INHALED! Displayed on labels marked with a skull and crossbones, posters and printed pages in user manuals, the warning was directed at the manufacturers, transporters and users of MIC. The molecule was so volatile that its combination with only a few drops of water or a few ounces of metal dust would prompt an uncontrollably violent reaction. No safety system, no matter how sophisticated, would then be able to stop it from emitting a fatal cloud into the atmosphere. To prevent explosion, MIC had to be kept permanently at a temperature near 0° C. Provision had to be made for the refrigeration of any drums or tanks that were to hold it. Any plant that was going to carry stocks of it needed to be equipped with decontamination apparatus and flares to neutralize or burn it in case of accidental leakage.
Not surprisingly, the transportation of methyl isocyanate was subject to extraordinary safety precautions. Union Carbide’s internal guidelines, applicable worldwide, required delivery truck drivers to “avoid congested routes, bypass towns and cities, and stop as infrequently as possible.” In case of a sudden burning sensation in the eyes, they were to rush to the nearest telephone box and dial the four letters HELP, followed by 744-34-85, Carbide’s emergency number. They were then to evacuate their vehicle to “an unoccupied area.”
Carbide had decided to play its hand openly, which was not always the case in the chemical industry. A whole chapter of its manual detailed the horrible effects of inhaling MIC: first severe pains in the chest, then suffocation and, finally, pulmonary edema and possible death. In case of such an incident, the manual advised that contaminated parts should be rinsed with water, oxygen should be administered, as well as medication to dilate the bronchia.
All the same, Carbide did not publicly disclose all the information revealed by two secret studies undertaken at its request in 1963 and 1970 by the Mellon Institute of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. These studies of the toxicity of methyl isocyanate showed that under the influence of heat it broke down into several molecules, which were also potentially fatal. Among these molecules was hydrocyanide acid, a gas with a sinister reputation, which when inhaled in strong doses, almost invariably caused immediate death. The two studies also revealed, however, the existence of an antidote to this fatal gas. Injection with sodium thiosulfate could, in certain cases, neutralize the deadly effects of the gas. Carbide had not seen fit to include this information in its documentation for MIC.
It was in its new Institute plant on the banks of the Kanawha, that Carbide intended to make the MIC it needed for its annual production of thirty thousand tons of Sevin. Known as “Institute 2,” this plant was to operate in conditions so safe and with such regard for the environment that it would be an industrial model for the entire valley.