Frightening Findings At Bhopal

By Peter Stoler

The headquarters of Union Carbide in Danbury, Conn., used to have a reputation as a fairly happy shop. Jokes were freely exchanged in the corridors, and executives casually walked around the firm's suburban grounds. Although profits last year were just $323 million on sales of $9.5 billion, below those of the chemical-industry giants, company executives gave the impression that things would soon get better. But since the gas leak on Dec. 3 in Bhopal, India, that left at least 1,400 people dead and perhaps 170,000 more injured, the mood in Danbury has changed dramatically. No one, from Chairman Warren Anderson on down, expects Union Carbide to collapse as a result of the Bhopal disaster, but all acknowledge that the firm is under a cloud that could get darker. Said a company official last week: "I haven't seen too many smiles around here for a while. I don't expect to see any for a long time."

The frowns and furrowed brows are understandable because Bhopal is never far away. About five people continue to die each week from aftereffects of the accident. The company announced last month that it had taken a $17.8 million write-down on its fourth-quarter earnings in order to cover costs incurred as a result of the Bhopal accident. The write-down pushed Union Carbide earnings, which would have been 44 cents a share, down to 19 cents and raised new questions about Union Carbide's ability to attract investors.

Moreover, those troubles could be just the beginning. The company also faces lawsuits filed on behalf of victims and their families that total billions of dollars. Last week a panel of federal judges in Washington ordered that 18 separate cases against Union Carbide be combined into one suit and said that * it would be assigned to the U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Pretrial hearings could start as early as next month. Attorney Melvin Belli, who is suing Union Carbide for $15 billion in the name of several victims, predicted that the suits could be settled by the end of the year.

Union Carbide's in-house investigation of the accident will probably not be completed before the end of February. But an inquiry under way in India is already reaching some initial conclusions. The investigation has identified a combination of design flaws, operating errors and managerial mistakes that helped cause the accident and intensified its effects. In addition, the accident has stirred serious questions about placing modern technology in less industrialized Third World nations.

The result of seven weeks' work by a team of Indian government officials, the report on the Bhopal accident will not be published until the opening of a judicial inquiry in India that is scheduled to begin in a month or so. But sources close to the investigation have disclosed some frightening findings. The main conclusions:

Plant safety procedures were inadequate to deal with a large-scale leak of the deadly methyl isocyanate, or MIC, despite the fact that the dangers such a leak would pose were known. Nor had any precautions been taken to protect people living near the plant site. Although a safety survey conducted by experts from Union Carbide headquarters in 1982 identified major hazards that could lead to serious incidents, no procedures were developed for alerting or evacuating the population that would be affected by an accident.

Leaky valves were a constant problem at the plant. Six serious accidents occurred at the Bhopal installation between 1978 and 1982, and three, one of which was fatal, involved gas leaks.

Some important safety systems were not working at the time of the accident. Refrigeration units designed to keep the highly reactive MIC cool so that it could not vaporize had been shut down before the accident. Other equipment, including devices designed to vent and burn off excess gases, was so inadequate, investigators hinted, that it would have been ineffective even if it had been operating at the time of the accident.

Plant workers failed to grasp the gravity of the situation as it developed, allowing the leak to go unattended for about an hour. Brief and frantic efforts to check the leak failed. As the situation deteriorated, the workers panicked and fled the plant.

Union Carbide, which disclosed late last month that leaks at its Institute, W. Va., plant had resulted in a revision of procedures there, has conceded that some of the information coming out of India is correct. The company has acknowledged that a backup storage tank that was supposed to be empty at the time of the accident had in fact been partly filled. But company officials declined to comment in detail on other findings until they could study the results of their investigation.

Chairman Anderson has been personally devastated by the accident. "Union Carbide has a moral responsibility in this matter," Anderson has declared. "We are not ducking it." He has stated that his company intends to compensate the victims, and says that it is trying to work out a plan for doing that as soon as possible.

Payment of compensation will undoubtedly go a long way toward repairing relations between Union Carbide and the government of India. A settlement, however, will not resolve the complex issue of relations between multinational corporations and Third World countries. The investigation in India has determined that Union Carbide never fully advised either the national government or the district administration of the dangers involved in producing and storing MIC. At the same time, it is not clear whether local officials did enough to guarantee the safety of the Bhopal plant.

With reporting by K.K. Sharma/Bhopal