The Railway Men: Revisiting the Government Response to an Environmental Disaster

In: Worldviews: global religions, culture and ecology, Volume 28, Issue 1, p. 71-80

Abstract

Abstract
The Bhopal Disaster, also known as the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, is recognized as the world's worst industrial disaster. The Bhopal Disaster is the only industrial disaster affecting half a million people in the last few decades. Because of the sheer magnitude of this disaster, this topic remains relevant, especially to learn what preventive measures could have been taken to ensure such a tragedy never occurred. The disaster occurred from a mixture of chemicals that produced a toxic gas, a lack of employee reporting when issues arose in the plant and weak safety systems. In December 1984, a poison gas blanketed the city of Bhopal. Due to the mistakes mentioned above, over two thousand people and many more livestock died overnight and were discovered the next morning. The effects of the disaster still linger in the same location to this day.