After Bhopal: Cleaning up the World's Worst-Ever Industrial Disaster 

damn you Simon, now i'm sad :'(

Great video. That was a horrible tragedy that could have been so easily avoided.

I see the idea of using primarily metric units went out of the window with this one... How much are those pressures in Bar or Kilopascal?

Lovell telescope would be a cool vid for the Megaprojects team. It's tilting motors are made from 15inch ww2 battleship turrets, just to name one cool feature. Lovell the man also has a fascinating story to tell.

Personally, I love the idea of a few videos covering things that SHOULD have been huge projects.... but then, for various reasons, werent.

I'm so sorry to hear of your tragic experience, but thank you for sharing. Putting a personal face on such tragedies helps people to identify with the issue and hopefully take away the message of it's importance, and hopefully to do better in the future. I was saddened to hear that even today, the mess is still there endangering the lives of those who live there. See my separate post. I'm a former chemical engineer who spent a lot of time addressing industrial safety as part of my job, and I learned about key points of the event while getting my BSChE in college. I've taken the message of the need for safety to heart and try to share lessons learned about industrial safety with family & friends to raise awareness & hopefully, this awareness might also make them more aware of their own Safety at Home & at Work. I'm saddened that this incident was never properly addressed to the victims of the event, as you mention. Trying to read more for myself, it seemed the people suffered as everyone tried to avoid responsibility. The biggest lesson that should have been learned relates to plant siting. In today's US Industry, there are many very good tools to be used that address the safety of siting issues (that is, can an accident have offsite impacts and what needs to be done to avoid them). My first takeway is that people should never have been allowed to live at the facility fenceline / or if siting it there meant that would happen, AND it should never have been located so close to a major population center. The other major one was that so many safety systems were not even in operation, or improperly size for the service, and the practices employed for keeping the plant in servicable condition were appalling. I have to say though, when in the 1990's I would hear "old timers" talk about operating practices from the 1970's and earlier, I was appalled (I graduated and began work in 1991). I think, looking back, we need to recognize that people didn't have the same appreciation for what was acceptable or even safe. I also spent some time in our licensing group and helped start-up a plant in China in 2004-2005, and met with some of our licensees from around the world in tech exchange support meetings every 2-years. Not all companies even do that, but I believe it is key to success both economic & safety. Part of the problem working between different cultures can be that each side may not have an appreciation for what the other culture considers acceptable and how things work "normally". Unless you have an experienced Engineering Firm helping to bridge this gap (and even if you do) sometime things one side considers acceptable, is based on an assumed premise of how things work in their own culture, which is NOT always true when a given project get implemented. This can cause safety issues to crop up even if BOTH sides are trying to do their best. This DOES NOT apply to the Bhopal incident, but did to my own project. And could have lead to deaths from an explosion when valves were installed with studs of the wrong thread type (English vs Metric), which allowed the valve to come lose some time after operation had commenced. It is not even something we would have considered, as getting the thread type right would have been a skill of any pipefitter employed in my country, but the very poor day laborers employed locally had no idea of such an issue an its potential impact. This was an example of both sides doing what they thought was what was needed. Fortunately, our start-up plant support folks spotted the leak immediately and informed us in the control room and we were able to shutdown the operation in seconds, even so, the building was filled to some extent, with flammable gas. However, the operation was stopped in time and no one was injured. I give everyone credit for (1) having the appropriate folks on hand for start-up / shakedown of the plant, and (2) working together to identify the problem and (3) the Chinese management had their people work with us to identify ALL VALVES in the plant where this could have occurred, and did not restart until they were ALL checked and addressed. From what I've read of the incident, clearly, in Bhopal, this level of safety awareness was beyond the ken of what was practiced, expected, nor even conceived of. And thus, you had a terrible tragedy. God Bless you and your family. Best wishes. I hope this at least encourages you as to what industry practice SHOULD be today. This only occurs where people work to make it happen, either the owner or the government at some level, and the builders of the facilities (which should not even begin until siting determines it is a SAFE place to be, and THEN the needs to keep off-site incidents from becoming catastrophes are to be evaluated and implemented), and internal plant safety must also be addressed. A LOT con be done with good work & permitting procedures in conjunction with good Operation procedures (also seemed to be missing in Bhopal incident) . I'm sorry if I went on too long. These are lessons I care about and implemented in my job with the FULL SUPPORT & REQUIREMENT of my Employer.

Thanks for sharing that powerful story. It's so shameful how you have all been let down by the companies and governments involved.

I read about this in the late 80s and the story always shocked me.

I am so sorry this happened to you and yours. There is no excuse for this corporate behavior. None.

I am so sorry this happened to you. All the victims and survivors deserved so much better.

That is awesome.

For real. Funny how we let companies like this off without a meaningful resolution to the damage they cause.

See Chernobyl as example.

Best comment yet

@@n2nightfall big multinationals always make sure nothing can stick if they're up to shenanigans, shell companies, and subsidiaries mean even if you do shut down the company directly responsible it is but a single claw of the beast.

Good idea, you could start with Beirut..

This is a good idea. I would be on board with it 100%

@@yrmh1 and Tianjin

Lol China would never admit their fuckup in Tianjin

Also, please run MegaDisasters as a mixed spin-off between MegaProjects and Business Blaze (I'm lookin' at you, Berlin Airport Disaster)

wow. im glad she wasnt there.

Someone upstairs was watching out for your mom that night.

Orya Bustee next door was the worst affected as the wall was right next to MIC tank 160.

She was most definitely lucky to be running late.

@@DesertFernweh yup.

More Power to you! Love from India...

If you want to see another channel that covered the events leading up to the disaster in more detail, I suggest checking out Plainly Difficult. They make videos on all sorts of nuclear and industrial incidents, accidents, disasters, etc, from Bopal and Chernobyl to events like the Halifax explosion.

thank you team, until now all I knew of this was from the Seconds from disaster programme on Nat Geo, you have given me a lot more info, can you try to do other things such as this please. It's interesting.

"Greetings from Mexico". Mexico ain't much better in the oil and gas industry. Let alone the chem industry. Your officials sex party with the cartel will destroy good people

@EmperorJuliusCaesar Dumb criminals are ruling INDIA. Not even smart ones man xD

I would also include the executives from the U.S. Corporation that had oversight over the plant.

You want to jail the central banks ? :o

Hahahaha. Fun fact that the main convict was given safe passage to America and the government never took any attention towards the issue and just distributed money to shut the face of the people suffered from that incident. How does that sounds as a government!!!!. Yes this is the type of government that ruled our country for almost 7 decades. You can see the status of India even after this much time it is a developing country. No doubt the govt is responsible for all of the tragedies across the country. If you don't trust me just google scams by Congress govt in India, you will find the truth.

How u gonna multiply life?

@@utkarshdeo4931 What was the murderer's Name again, I Know I knew it once.

Yeah, even if it was human error the failsafes didn't work , scrubbers didn't work , flare tower didn't burn off the gas, no alarm ..union carbide preferred saving money over maintaining safety .. local contractors were not properly qualified.. was a real shit show. Union carbide paid 470 million as fines for this but many people still haven't got settlement..

I agree, although I think they did that more for the criminal charges part rather than then civil charges part. I think by saying that they had policies in place, but the local workers didn't follow them, they can argue that the executives shouldn't be held criminally liable (even if the company is still held liable in a civil case). Not saying that is correct either, but in a court it would be an easy argument to make.

Pretty sure you need to clean some rooms first.

Ya, If the plant was up to code there is no way one person with a water hose could do all that.

@@into_the_void hahahah,you think they had safety measures? much less scrubbers? Back then? In India??? That's exactly why Union Carbide set this plant up in India in the first place, so they could cut cost on safety measures and standards, as well as lower labor costs as well as lesser training for the employees, every bit of which all contributed to virtually guarantee that something like this would happen sooner or later.

Bhopal ranks at no 5 of India's cleanest city. And yes it's cleanliness is largely due to Swatchh Bharat Abhiyan

I left a dislike because he missed a really big reason why there was no clean-up: methyl isocyanate is extremely reactive and will decompose with atmospheric water and CO2. There's no way that you could "clean it up" faster than ambient conditions would. There are still remnants of decomposition products, but those don't really pose a risk.

Now its -265- 256 executives.

@@Nuovoswiss what about ground water contamination today ??

@@associatedblacksheepandmisfits Again the issue is there's not really any way to "clean up" the reaction byproducts out of groundwater. Perhaps you could give the locals some carbon filters for their drinking water, but the byproducts that remain aren't really dangerous in trace concentrations.

Because of mid rolls adds. Making money off this subject

MP is bigger than entire mainland UK..

"located in the town of Madhya Pradesh" this is such an understatement, I had to rewind and listen to it twice to make sure I heard it right.

@@hariharanyuvaraj1754 haha yeah even I didn't comment before re-listening to it, making sure I wasn't making the comment in haste. Nonetheless, good thing the topic is covered for broader awareness around the world.

Cant wait to see someone blaming modi for this... Lol😂😂

@@Hegde- well that's a stupid comment

Thank you for the info, I certainly will.

Thanks for the info

Where can we find it? If you know

Engineering Disasters did a halfway decent job as well for the 45 minute version. Also the CSB video is short but has lots of technical details.

Yeah, let's trust netflix xD

Indore is a city of its own right?

Would be great to see!!

Now theres a megaproject

Please do a video about it, it's pretty important for Tokyo as a whole

Do it!

That sounds really cool.

they wont do it because they can't use it as propaganda to defend capitalism

They cant do it because there is no recovery to show. It was treated just like a natural disaster and no actions were taken during or after the incident. It will show the true color of the authorities and especially the govt so they will not be permitted to make a show on this.

@Vaas Montenegro same thing

@@sabotabby3372 Well India wasn't really a free market capitalist nation during that time, in those times India was more inclined towards socialistic and communistic strategies , being allied to USSR thing. It is only after India became a fully free market capitalist nation that India has finally started to develop , and I hope India can achieve success at the same level of Scandinavian free market capitalism

@@draxthedestroyer3334 you say this on the video about the chain of corporate negligence and profiteering that lead to the disaster

He said town of Bhopal then town again, so probably just a flub.

Bhopal is not a town either, its is the capital city of Madhya Pradesh

Just two comments that's it

@@Justanotherconsumer i am from Bhopal.

Why You lot are crying?

I say that their government, the company, and any volunteers should work to clean it. They can't decide who's fault it was, so they might as well stop b!tching about it and work together to actually solve the problem.

😉 u have never been to the 3rd world i see

It needs to be cleaned but I'd say that Bhopal has kind of moved on unfortunately. The city is focusing more on building metro rail, bus networks as well as better roads, parks and pedestrian facilities and a brand new cbd than cleaning up the dangerous wreckage.

Never happen. You've never been to India, I take it.

@@dwarasamudra8889 If that stuff isn't taken care of, eventually there won't be any people there to use the metro, buses, parks, etc. That stuff is leaking into the groundwater. The birth rate of deformed children will only continue to go upwards if it goes on like this

And the James Webb space telescope pleeeeease

Bump

Sir, I've seen short, interesting videos elsewhere!?

No, lets get justice for merican adventurism....

Simon needs to "just" add yet another channel, all about space missions.

He really did not cover it very well.

@@1pcfred if he fully covered it it may have been taken down by RU-vid for graphic content

@@joshbunton6424 there's nothing graphic about it. Just facts. What is graphic about too much precursor being stored? What is graphic about a broken pipe? What is graphic about who owns what? He mentioned the sabotage. That is very controversial. That someone did something that set all of this off.

@@1pcfred the content itself wouldn't be graphic to us but RU-vid in its current state might have

@@joshbunton6424 you think the Indian mafia would put Simon in cement overshoes?

Our life

Welcome to the club mate

Megaprojects, megadisasters, they are definitely related.

not just any random info, random info that can teach us lessons for the future

I also come here to get the random info while I'm smoking.

So say we all

Cameron Ward haha i feel that

Yeah but that 30M could go to executive bonuses instead of safety for people too poor to sue.

@@Praisethesunson it socialism for the rich

Yeah but the Indian government did own like 48/49% if memory serves, and its their regulations and standards that caused it (plus just the culture of expecting everything to work fine and accidents are always livable). If it was truely and only business to blame it would be every country with private enterprise that has these stories not just India. And besides the Soviets caused disasters in purpose. Pouring waste into rivers etc. It really comes down to who makes the rules. And you want there to be enough wealth that society can afford to enforce those rules.

Wasn't DuPont's problem. Never was any American company's problem. To take it on would be admitting guilt. Union Carbide Limited of India was a wholly Indian owned company. Union Carbide Corporation's only failure was to do business with those scumbags at all. UCC made the mistake of licensing them processes. Indians built that plant and ran it. The way Indians tend to do those sorts of things. Which is not too well. Perhaps if the plant had been more financially successful things may have played out differently? As it was they were struggling from the get go. Which is why they had storage tanks overflowing with precursor chemicals. They should have been making product. Instead due to poor sales they just weren't. How they ultimately cleaned that plant up is they put it online. They ran through the materials on site. It was the safest thing to do.

@@1pcfred Union Carbide ran the show dude. Saying it was run by Indians is deliberately dishonest BS pushed by Carbide. UC owned it. UC ordered the staff in India directly. Indians didn't run anything. UC gutted the facility to save themselves money.

The video will get demonetized if they'll show actual images of the dead children. Some of them were in the 8th standard textbooks. I remember being very excited having my new books and was just going through all of them when i passed the chapter. The image of a dead girl with eyes like stones shook me to the core. I think they removed them from the books that are there now.

@@kvineet631 yikes. thats not an image i would ever want to see.

@@kvineet631 Here kids have that exact same image in the school books. We do not clean our teachingmaterials because if someone will get offended by it. It is a fact and needs to be told as is.

What did they tell you?

@Alex people tend to blame whatever is easiest to blame.

"Napalm sticks to kids!"

Jonathan Stave I agree, it is a beautiful cathedral

Was there in 07, is it finished yet?

Nik Turk Was there last year. It won’t be finished for another several years, but tower construction was going on in earnest.

Not Megaprojects, but Real Engineering did a video on that recently: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-kkNGdzo_3EA.html

haha, thats what I thought when I saw the Chernobyl propaganda piece by HBO. I wondered would an american media company ever do such a series on a fuck up, that clearly rivals Chernobyl and surpasses it on its death toll.

i was thinking during the video: Chernobyl, a long chain of SOVIET negligence, coverups, fear bla bla bla.....Now look what they say for Bhopal. An employee sabottage. Weird right?

Especially because it helps put things into perfective. Nuclear is regarded by the public to be so hazardous and dangerous that everything should be tore down without a second thought (which most people with an inch of knowledge into the technology will know is nonsense), meanwhile simple chemical production can lead to gigantic accidents with no real way to clean it up, and where most often the plants operate in super close proximity to residential areas without real oversight. I mean think about it, 3 milles island was completly contained and in itself had no negative consequences, since the reactor was able to be safely decontaminated and extracted, and the second core kept operating flawlessly. Chernobyl was a pair of reckless operation, multiple breach of protocol, stupid desing descisions and not informing the plant operators of the specificity of RBMK operations. And fukushima was once again stupid descisions at the hand of the plant operators and ignoring safety reports that highlighted EXACTLY what could and would go wrong. That's just how most companies operate. If you allow them to slash costs, they will do so. They gain a lot of profit margins from slashing down on maintenance and they know that in case things go horribly wrong, they will get bailed out. Yet we need these things so we will obviously have an incentive to pay these companies a great deal to expand their operations as ususal. I feel like humans across the planet really need a reality check. It isn't because something feels more dangerous that it actually is. If it feels dangerous it most likely means that you have a fuckload of safety and backup measures put in place, and that the role of the public is to force those useless politics to uphold their word and to hold companies acountable when they do not respect the regulations. We should also push to upgrade our processes to the most modern and efficient itteration as much as possible, since old equipement operates less efficiently anyways and is the cause for most of the waste products that any industry produces. Obviously nuclear would benefit the most for it, since all of the "problems" with nuclear were fixed decades ago but never implemented due to public outcry and declining budgets, but it would aslo help for almost every industrial fields.

Why would they?? Warren Anderson, the owner was a US citizen, they protected him until his death a few years ago. Bhopal was a bigger disaster than Chernobyl yet pretty few people know about it.

you can actually check national geographics documentary they've already made one.

Yes please do!!!

New channel Mega... I couldn’t think of anything that would be appropriate without significant ****

Disasterology: the biggest and most notable disasters in recorded history

The Kyshtym disaster would be a great one to do.

Drachinifel has a great video about the great white fleet if you're interested in it.

Possibly a Bismarck/Tirpitz episode would be nice or that crazy iceberg carrier brittan wanted to build

@@tonyeldredge7973 I think Simon has a video on that iceberg carrier somewhere. It's on Today I found out. /watch?v=1HxXoTpgzSg

Been asking for a video on this too, glad to see others have the same idea 👍

How about a video on the Bismarck. He already did a video on the Yamato and it would make sense to make a Bismarck video.

@Dhum tana na na If the soil the river runs through is contaminated, you will have to wait a *long* time until it is 'clean'. So I would not rule out the reason to be contaminants of the incident and factory from 40 years ago. There certainly are even other sources around, both natural and industrial, so better keep out of the waters anyway. What makes chemicals worse than any nuclear energy incident: That stuff does not decay or break down as fast as radioactive materials do, and you cannot detect them as easy as with an geiger counter. (Yes, I got a degree (diploma) in physical chemistry)

And it will never change. Greedy mothfuckers run the world and continue to acquire wealth and power to the detriment of everyone else.

there are conspiracy theories that it was a deliberate leak to test the potency of the gas.

Always remember: There's a reason you never heard about this.

I'm shocked that you haven't... It's pretty well known.. like Chernobyl!! P.s.: I live in Bhopal :)

If you didn’t know about this you are too young or weren’t paying attention at the time.

LOL Yes, you have. Ever use a battery? Who do you think produced that battery? Union Carbide did.

Bohpal 2nd

@@pranayvaka1113 surat is second not bhopal

@@ATOMIC_1563 either way it is quite the feat. I mean all the various courses all together, not just one setup for one event.

@@ATOMIC_1563 The half-pipe at snowmass does not even melt out until the summer. My sister has been living in the aspen area for years now, both her& my BIL worked for a non profit for years that allowed them to get subsidized rent. Its a gorgeous place though, we went to her wedding in Aspen. Building the Event Features themselves is a lot of work. That halfpipe is huge and has to be remade every year. The slope-style course and the features have to be built. I think there is enough there in the run up run down of the event to make an episode. The inn at snowmass is pivotal in it as well as they work with espn in terms of all the lodging and facilities. Finally the tie in with the ski patrol & how much they have to ramp up their usual activity. on and on.

Lol other mega projects include the Panama Canal and the Hoover Dam... lets do one on the x games building ramps... lol

Dude. ....... that's quite the comment after this topic..... maybe could have saved that one

Surprise, surprise.

Well, if the American officials were made to do prison time in an Indian jail, no foreign company would ever invest in India ever again. So the Indian government could not punish them any harder. Plus Indianising the American designed plant, making it cheaper and less safe to operate was more or less the responsibility of the Indian government who stipulated the plant must have been constructed using Indian supplied engineering. It could be argued the Indian engineering was not entirely up to the task expected of it, and the corrosion in pipes, faults in instruments and other common failures were not the fault of the American Union carbide corporation; they did inspect and make corrective suggestions which the Indian management ignored, probably because they couldn’t afford to rebuild the plant as it couldn’t sell its expensive pesticide product in India… epic design flaws created by political imposition on the technology and engineering implementation. You could say if the American company had been allowed to put anAmerican built plant in India it would be engineered in a safer way. But the end product, a pesticide named Sevin, probably would have been far too expensive to be successful. The Americans assumed of they made something good in massive quantities, it would drive the price down. As it happened, the MIC was not made at the plant initially and the Alpha Napthol - another of the ingredients - was never made as intended due to design flaws in the plant. So having to import ingredient chemicals instead of making them in Bhopal really screwed up the economics.

what didn't help at all was how union carbide disregarded all requests from the plant management for maintenance budgets. For them, this was an "out of sight, out of mind" case

gibraltar spanish

@Clinton Lewis Indeed, a bridge there would be highly disruptive to commerce, goods going to/from UK / Ireland and India via the Suez Canal.

Hey, Norman its really great to see so much empathy. However, Im fairly certain there isn't much you can do as the accident was 36 years ago. And there are not many non-profits that exist to still help victims. The country and the city of Bhopal as has pretty much moved on from the tragedy. If you truly wish to help the people of Bhopal, I suggest you visit after the pandemic. Its a beautiful city with a rich history and a unique culture that has come a long way from 1984. PS: Every government since 1984. Has promised to clean up the factory site.

You can't do anything to it except vote for people into positions that can and are willing to set laws so it prevents it. Now problem is, corps gets punished, not the persons behind them. Corps doesn't care, its only money and there is plenty to make more.

@@SergeyPRKL That's not how it works in India. You vote for people to bring change, they promise change and nothing happens. People adapt and accept here. They move away find new homes and exist in their new normal eventually everyone moves on and we forget that something horrible happened. No one talks about it no one does anything about it. It is what it is.

I’m sorry to hear that.

you should support communism.

Yogesh Sharma are you mad and have you forgotten all the mishaps happened because of Russia (communist country)

This is not really about capitalism or socialism. Its about corruption and lack of will to protect the environment.

@@PB-dd7kv Yea. Communism and capitalism etc. are just empty words that distract people from discussing the real issues. Corrupt politicians don't care what their system is called

I am from Bhopal. Effects still there. It was like Chernobyl & Nagasaki disaster.

what does responsibility matter after the fact? it already happened what’s it’s gonna change if a company comes out and says “it’s our fault”? come on dude

@@dylanwoods2418 wouldn't you love for somebody to take responsibility for the death of your family's and love-ones... Plus maybe pay more than compensate you with more than pennies on the dollar

How could anything that has the Ganges flowing through it be "Clean"?

@@nicke1903 Take a visit and see for yourself.. or if you broke AF, just Google it.

@@nicke1903 Ganges flowing through Indore? You really are not that good at Geography, are you , you would do all of us a huge favor if you did not discuss politics about a country that you clearly know very little of

Nick E lmao wtf the Ganges don’t flow through MP xD. I’m from Bhopal and my college is in Indore and I can say by experience that both of these cities are clean I’ve seen the amount of work they put every night . Working whole night cleaning the roads .

The poha is really good in bhopal train stations.

The story of the disaster at windscale. It could have been much worse if it wasn’t for the insistence of one of the nuclear physicists John Cockcroft that the chimneys should have radionuclide scrubbers fitted at quite a bit of additional cost and considered unnecessary before the accident.

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ABRX34WlluU.html - I think you meant the Buncefield oil storage depot in 'Hemel Hempstead', and NOT 'Welwyn Garden City' (...just google it.) *facepalm* - A friend of mine lived around the corner at the time of this disaster, and as-such, she was one of the first civilians who dared to go capture some footage just minutes after. ..she was lucky. - I also had another good friend who worked for BPL at that time and he was heavily involved in the (attempted) environmental clean-up of the chemically saturated soils within and surrounding this catastrophe. Sadly his longterm physical health will never fully recover from what he was exposed too in those weeks and months following. - The initial explosion woke me up more than 10 miles south, only then to be rattled by the delayed shockwaves. - Absolutely worth some further investigation by Simon and co. if you want my tuppence-worth.. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buncefield_fire

geoffrodo sorry for my bad spelling

Mike Dando these things happen. (I knew what you meant.😜)