Vizag Gas Leak Appears as Reminiscent of the 1984 Bhopal Disaster

Being an industrial centre of Andhra Pradesh, Visakhapatnam is seasoned with multiple factories and plants. But the disaster of the lethal Gas leak was not expected. It happened in the early morning of Thursday, 7^th May 2020. Visakhapatnam woke up with demises of its citizens.

Cause behind the disaster

According to the LG Polymers, the accident had occurred around 2.30 am of night when suddenly the styrene gas due to some obscure reason had started leaking from a huge storage tank which was containing approx 1800 tones volatile compound. The responsible company has assumed that some changes in temperature inside the tank might have caused fault in the auto polymerization that led to such vaporization.

Around 2.30-3 am on Thursday, gas had been leaked from a storage tank of LG Polymers in Visakhapatnam. The radius of the exposure was up to 3-4 kilometers

Brief description of styrene

Since the styrene compound is being blamed for the accident, we must know what the styrene is! It’s nothing but sweet colorless liquid that is used as the key ingredients for making plastics, rubbers and polymers. According to EPA, high-level exposure of styrene might affect the human nervous system, also can lead to fatigue, headaches and irritation in eyes.

Chemistry department of IIT Guwahati has stated that the toxic liquid can’t spread to a large radius so they have assumed that some other chemical mixture must have leaked together.

Effect on human life

The accident caused death of approx 13 people which also includes a child and hundreds of people are affected till now. Andhra police has stated that 800 affected people have been sent for treatment. The mortal styrene gas leakage also killed numerous animals. It’s being claimed by a reliable source that later on, more people have also felt breathlessness and burning sensation in eyes.

Soon after the gas exposure the locals started feeling breathlessness and felt irritation in their eyes. Later, some of them have been were rescued in devastated condition.

Similarities with Bhopal disaster

The question has roused and is circulating that in spite of being witnessed of the Bhopal tragedy how the companies could act so irrationally. Many people and media have stated that it got cleared that how the companies are underplaying the environmental toxicity.

An unnamed senior officer has claimed on a Business Today article that the value controls of the compounds were not properly handled and thus the ignorance has brought the devastation. As per reliable sources, it is claimed the LG Polymer used to hand over the responsibilities of critical operations to their untrained casual workers which is one of the main reasons of the leak similar to the Bhopal disaster.

LG Polymers has taken the responsibility of the tragic gas leakage and put statement on it 

Another similarity of the Vizag Gas leakage with the Bhopal disaster is the quantity of volatile toxicities. From the statements of LG Polymers, it is cleared that they stored exceeding level of compounds inside the leaked storage tank with no regards to the Hazardous chemical rule, 1989

Adjuvant from Govt. authorities

Quick after getting informed of the situation, the Visakhapatnam Municipal had started requesting the citizens to stay inside their house. Due to the ongoing pandemic situation and lockdown, it had become critical to admit the affect people in hospitals.

Meanwhile, with the promptness of Indian government, a team of Indian navy had rushed to the affected area with 50 breathing sets and essential amenities. Later, the Andhra govt. had also announced of paying RS 1 cr to the families of the dead workers and people.

The local authorities and rescue team reached at the place with essential amenities. The team had rescued the affected people and sent to the local hospitals

Public reaction

Public figures and common people have started putting their opinion in this sensitive issue. Many of them are blaming the companies for acting against the environmental and social welfare. It’s now confirmed that we have failed to take lesson from the previous Bhopal tragedy. 

Yet, it is time to think again on the larger and long-term benefits for society and thus, more security for workers, more public involvement and more active democracy are needed to prohibit such destruction.