8k to 18k dead, 1/2 million injured-Industrial "accident"

[packman]

makes the incident in WV look like a harmless prank by your friendly industrial corporation .
How many remember this? Reading about the consequences, India could only sentence the people who did this to a few years in jail and less than $3k fine . And it still is an on-going case and the remains of the plant is still contaminating the area.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster

[Auntie Bush]

1. I remember that!

Many heads should have rolled...but didn't...at least not far enough.

[hedgehog]

2. I've started to view the circumstances differently after several people

I know from various international firms were involved in industrial projects in India. There are major problems bringing world class safety and operating methods to India. Often, companies are required to purchase sub-standard Indian manufactured components and have them installed by unskilled Indian owned firms. In one instance, a contractor was hired and paid as required, but that contractor's employees were not allowed on site. Another competent firm did the actual work.

Again, there is a real problem at the hand-off to Indian managers. The home office may order certain standards, but they tend to be ignored on the ground.

[WhiteTara]

3. good whitewash.

[hedgehog]

5. Not whitewash, just a mention of mitigating factors.

The people on the ground who should have been taking care of things were actually making things worse. The people in the US who should have been keeping tabs, didn't.

[packman]

4. If there's a host of problems

then why do they want to build in such a country? I suppose it's the cheap labor, lack of regulations, cheap land, proximity to factories using their products that inspired Union Carbide to build in India. Why build in their own backyard when the one across the sea offers so much more in terms of money, lack of laws and quick profit? I can't buy the argument that unskilled labor and local corruption caused this accident, I believe it was greed and profit motive that killed those thousands. The plant should have been built in a country with strong laws and adequate oversight.

I think there was a lot of wink-wink, nudge-nudge going on between the home office and the locals.

[hedgehog]

6. A possible market of 1.2 billion people is a good reason to have a presence in India.

As for wink-wink, nudge-nudge, Union Carbide was running a matching operation in (wait for it) West Virginia. Apparently, the plant was never shut down, just sold off to other companies.

http://www.publicintegrity.org/2010/06/11/2651/25-years-after-bhopal-us-plant-still-using-same-toxic-chemical

[Bigmack]

7. You fail to understand the most important factor...

... in the Bhopal poisoning.

They're brown people.

Brown lives... not so important.

Do I really have to add ?

[WhiteTara]

9. You think Appalachian coal miners are more

important to them? Nah. Just a bunch of trash all the way around.

[raouldukelives]

8. Sure, one of the first things to twist me away from Wall St.

The last thing I want in my bank account are the proceeds from human suffering. Others may be fine with it, as they obviously are. For some of us it turns our stomachs far more than any amount of gold can alleviate.

[redqueen]

10. Or this?

Far From Gulf, a Spill Scourge 5 Decades Old
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/world/africa/17nigeria.html?_r=0