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Ecology & Environment
Mahesh

05/12/24 12:04 PM IST

Bhopal gas tragedy

In News
  • Forty years after the Bhopal disaster on December 2-3, 1984, several hundred tonnes of toxic waste still remain around the ill-fated Union Carbide plant.
Bhopal Plant
  • Union Carbide India, Ltd. (UCIL) built the Bhopal plant in the late 1960s to manufacture an insecticide called carbaryl using a reaction of methyl isocyanate (MIC) with 1-naphthol.
  • MIC is a highly toxic compound. It reacts with water at high temperatures and its reaction with water also releases heat.
  • On the night of December 2, 1984, a large quantity of water entered a tank storing MIC at the plant such that the MIC was soon boiling.
  • Facilities at the plant to cool the tank were otherwise diverted, leaving MIC vapours to escape to the environment and spread through the settlements around the plant.
  • MIC doesn’t have a particular smell at concentrations at which other gases may become noticeable but it can irritate the eyes. However, given the hours, most of the people exposed to the gas were asleep.
Toxins at the plant
  • At the factory premises also contain about 11 lakh tonnes of contaminated soil, one tonne of mercury, and nearly 150 tonnes of underground dumps” — in addition to the 340 metric tonnes earmarked for incineration.
  • Chromium, copper, lead, mercury, and nickel are classified as heavy metals because their density is at least 5x that of water.
  • Mercury has been known to damage multiple organs even at low concentrations by accumulating in soft tissue and preventing normal cellular function.
  • Chromium is an essential nutrient required by the human body to promote the action of insulin for the utilisation of sugars, proteins and fats. … But high doses of chromium and long term exposure can give rise to various cytotoxic and genotoxic reactions that affect the immune system of the body.”
  • Lead is capable of damaging chlorophyll and disrupting photosynthesis in plants and rendering structural damage to cells and hampering their ability to produce energy in animals.
  • Also, lead from inorganic compounds has been correlated with stomach cancer and to a lesser degree with cancers of the lungs, kidneys, and the brain.
  • High levels of copper in the body have been known to damage the liver, the kidneys, and the gastrointestinal system.
  • Chloroform by another name is trichloromethane, and is infamous for its effects on the central nervous system.
  • At a sufficient concentration, it can cause an adult to faint, but at even higher ones it can cause death. The IARC has classified chloroform as “possibly carcinogenic” on the back of limited evidence of cancer-causing potential in humans but more reliable evidence in animals.
    Trichlorobenzene can take three chemical forms, or isomers, but all of them are volatile and spread easily through the air, although they have also been found in groundwater and in surface water bodies like lakes.
  • These compounds build up in the body’s fatty tissues and at high concentrations can damage the liver and the kidneys.
  • Finally, persistent organic pollutants (POPs) refer to organic compounds that don’t break down easily and thus last for many years in the environment once they enter it.
  • According to the Stockholm Convention on POPs, their effects include “cancer, allergies and hypersensitivity, damage to the central and peripheral nervous systems, reproductive disorders, and disruption of the immune system.”
  • Some POPs have also been associated with developmental disorders and worse outcomes in cancers of the liver, breasts, pancreas, and the prostate.
Source- The Hindu

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