Health and Safety Group

Bhopal remembered and lessons learned

I was privileged to attend two days of the Hazard XVIII meeting organised at UMIST, Manchester, by the Institute of Chemical Engineers’ North West Branch, co sponsored by the Health & Safety Group of SCI.

It is impossible to summarise the whole of this meeting in a few lines, suffice to say it was truly an international event. The plenary session began with a memorial lecture to Jack Burgoyne, who was a member of the Health and Safety Committee until he passed away last year.

As it is 20 years since the Bhopal disaster, Prof Gupta, of the department of chemical engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India, spoke about the events leading up to the catastrophic release of 41 tonnes of deadly methyl isocyanate gas, which claimed almost 3000 lives on the night of the disaster and many more since.

Prof Gupta dealt point by point with the details, so that lessons could be learnt regarding the use of poor safety procedure — a similar plant in the US has operated with a good safety record. Dr Bisarya, Mayor of Bhopal, gave a moving account of the events of 1984, saying: ‘I can say that I have seen chemical warfare. Everything was so quiet. Goats, cats, whole families – fathers, mothers, children all lying silent and still, and every structure totally intact.’

A meeting has now taken place in Kanpur, India, on ‘Bhopal and its effects on process safety’.

In the plenary session there was also a presentation on ‘Effects of the Colombia space shuttle accident on high risk industries’ and how lessons can be learned from other industries. The technology did exist to survey the outside of the shuttle when it is probable that the insulation loss on the outside would have been spotted and action could have been taken to protect this side during re-entry.

In all, over 200 attended from many countries and by running parallel sessions in four different theatres in the Weston Building there were 68 presentations covering a full range of situations including fire storage and process design. The event added to previous positive experiences of collaboration between SCI and the Institute of Chemical Engineers. Anyone interested in reading the details of the meeting will find them in the book Hazards XVIII in the SCI library.

By Carl Martin
Health & Safety Group