A time to remember Bhopal

Thirty five years ago today a tragedy of unimaginable proportions struct in the town of Bhopal, India. In the most horrific circumstances, while they slept, an estimated 3000 people perished, and hundreds of thousands we made ill after a released of highly toxic methyl isocyanate gas. This was the worst ever process safety incident the world has seen, and it is incumbent on us all to remember this day and those that lost their lives. This incident changed the way we manage major hazard facilities across the world, but sadly we still have incidents occur that kill workers and significantly impact the local communities. The issues at Bhopal that led to the incident are all too familiar, such as incorrect material specification, uncontrolled changes, financial pressured driving cost and production at the expense of safety. From an inherently safer design perspective the is so much we can learn from this incident. We need to consider the principles of inherently safer design in our facilities, these are minimise, substitute, moderate and simplify. We must learn from the past and improve our management of facilities so we, as an industry do not continue to harm and kill our workers and endanger the communities in which we operate. 

If you are interested in learning more about this incident, in 2014 IChemE published a free edition of Loss Prevention Bulletin dedicated to the Bhopal tragedy. It can be accessed here:

https://www.icheme.org/media/1277/lpb240_digimag.pdf

The ISC also recorded a webinar on the events of that night, and it can be accessed here:

https://www.icheme.org/knowledge/safety-centre/resources/webinars/