Citation Needed - The Bhopal Disaster [True Crime Special]

Episode Date: August 28, 2019

The Bhopal disaster, also referred to as the Bhopal gas tragedy, was a gas leak incident on the night of 2–3 December 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. It is considered to be the world's worst industrial disaster.[1][2] Over 500,000 people were exposed to methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas. The highly toxic substance made its way into and around the small towns located near the plant.[3] --- Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.

I just don't think we should limit ourselves. I disagree. We should try to do topics for the October 12th live show that are New York centric. You know what I'm saying? For like, yeah, I mean, I get it. I think we should expand our horizons a little. Okay, we are not doing the atrustkins.

That's off the table. Hi, he's good, Tim. Well, hey guys, we shouldn't open that door right there. It's, remember, it's the Bopal disaster this week. And I'm sure Eli like filled the studio with toxic gas or something like that, obviously. It's okay, guys. It's okay, come on in.

It's fine. It's fine. Come on in. Oh, hey, Cecil, I thought for sure, Eli would have, you know, pulled some poison explosion trick or something this week. Yeah, it was like 100% on that. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

he was going to. He locked himself in a shipping container with a small vat of toxic chemicals and he shipped himself here. Right. Huh, so how'd you find out about it? Well, well, he Snapchatted me while he was sealing himself into the box.

Oh my God, wait, he snapshots you? That's, well, it's not, I mean, he hired a guy to hack into my TV, so he snaps me all the time and it goes right to the big screen. Right? Oh, nasty. I cannot tell you how many episodes of the great British baking show been interrupted by Eli's dick.

Every episode? Yeah, every episode. Yeah, every single one. So you can tell us how many. I did, okay, all right, yeah, fine. Anyway, Eli's not gonna be here. I returned the container to send her, so we're good. That's it, we're done.

But isn't that gonna be dangerous for Eli? No, not for Eli, I don't care at all about Eli. Neither do I, I didn't care about Eli. Again, I'm just worried that the chemicals might leak from the container. Oh yeah, yeah. I was totally worried about that too, but then I looked it up on the EPA website and the highly toxic mixture

He was using you listed in the summer fun section as bass past the side to have a super-soker fight with so I think we're good I'm sure to be fine that cool. Yeah, that's good Hello and welcome to Citation Needed, the podcast where we choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts because this is the internet and that's how it works now I'm knowing I'm gonna be mitigating this disaster tonight now unfortunately Eli won't be able to join us tonight Not sure where he is. I'm sure he's fine, but joining me are three men with airtight alibis in case he isn't he Tom and Cecil I think the pressure gauge on my alibi is broken. It's not I think the pressure gauge on my alibi is broken. It's not. It's not here.

It doesn't matter. I've been paying a team of hobos to wear silicone masks of my face and stand in front of facial recognition cams just in case. That makes sense for this day. And this isn't for me, but this is clearly for you guys. Eli taxed to be inset his safe word is Bhopal. I don't know what that means. Oh, fuck you guys.

Alright, so before we get started tonight, I want to take a minute to thank the hardworking men women and non-binary individuals that make this possible through their generous donations to the show. As you listen to this episode, you might be tempted to think that there are other people in other countries that might need your money more than five middle class white guys

with college educations, but you would be wrong. It's just, you think poised Indians are going to make dick jokes for your pride not and if they did they would be that good. Anyway, if you want to give us money be sure to stick around to the end of the show and with that out of the way tell us Tom, what person plays think comes up phenomenon or event? Well, we'll be talking about today. Well, know us since nothing says funny like poor people choking on toxic gas. We'll be talking about the demographic makeup with the US military. Wait, or the Bopal disaster.

I wasn't, I'm not sure which. Wow. Jesus. All right. So he, if you chose a wildly depressing topic, are you ready to force us to make jokes about it? Cool. So you guys want to do the makeup of the US military?

Are you guys want to do the Bopal disaster? Let's do the Bopal disaster. I don't want to be controversial here. Flip a coin, coin flip. We're doing coins, right? This Bopal disaster, great. All right. So what was the Bopal disaster. Let's do the Bopal disaster. I don't want to be controversial here. Flip a coin, coin flip. Let me do a coin, right? Heads, Bopal disaster, great. All right, so what was the Bopal disaster? The Bopal disaster was a catastrophic poison gas leak incident that happened on December

2nd and 3rd of 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited Pesticide Plant in Bopal, India. It's also known as the Bhopal gas tragedy because someone clearly wants us to make a stage play out of it and eventually I'm assuming a musical. Big pin in that for later. Big pin in that for later. Cool. It would still be better than cats. It would still be much better than cats. That's the bar. And with an immediate death toll of and with an immediate death toll of 2,259 people plus way more than that if you keep counting after a day. She's so cute. And you should definitely keep counting after a day.

Yeah, I don't stop. How well numbers are there? This tragedy is generally considered to be the world's worst industrial disaster of all time. It's pretty much, this is the formula thing. It's pretty much my favorite low tech Chernobyl with poison vapors instead of radiation. Yeah, that's nuts.

Well, if anything screams comedy gold, it's the worst industrial disaster of all time. So start setting up those pins for us, Heath. We're ready. Okay, wait, I mean, I, it's the world's worst industrial disaster that happened all at once and that stopped. You know, like I feel like Deont is buying heavily for room on the podium.

That's fair. So here's a quick background on this chemical factory. It was built in 1969 to manufacture large amounts of a pesticide called carburel. And in order to produce that poison, you have to bring in a variety of starter poisons and then combine them in cauldrons, producing an intermediary poison,

and then eventually the final product. But the key is that intermediary poison, which is extremely deadly, like more than the other ones. It's not so much a pesticide, but more of a homicide. It kills people like super easily as we're gonna find, or genocide. I mean, lots of names of them. Yeah, right, not a size, yeah.

Yeah, a lot of sides. And this... In this side, yeah. Sure, yeah, sure. Yeah, there's some famous picture of that. Yup, duh. Don't look it up, it's super depressing. And this terrifying intermediary poison

is a gas called methyl isosionate or MIC. Or MIC. Or MIC. Or MIC. Or MIC. Or MIC. And the methyl usually is a good matter. Sure.

Yeah. No, this is rough though. The main disaster was because of this stuff called MIC or Mike.C. or Mike, and it's gonna be the main cause of death when things go wrong. So, it's a death factory. Right, like this is the perfect setting for this story, a final boss stage, and nowhere else. Okay, you know, maybe this whole thing wouldn't have happened

if somebody would have paid more attention in Trent Rezner's potions class. It's so is so, oh, yeah. This is definitely the stuff of like a terrifying music video. No question. So, but yeah, circling back really quick, I used to phrase, when things go wrong,

but just to be clear, they already went wrong a bunch. Like just typing up their poison cauldron business model is probably like the third or fourth worst industrial disaster of all time. Because you can produce carburel their final product without making M.I.C. Deathvapor along the way. There's other ways of doing that. And they just didn't feel like it. He can I get a boo nerd real quick from you just one? Quick, yeah Boon nerd. Boon nerd.

Boon nerd. Thank you. Thank you. I felt like we needed one of those. All right. And also, I was not exaggerating when I said cauldron earlier. Normally, you know, you think of industrial chemical plants. You're picturing like big, shiny, stainless steel tanks, a whole bunch of fancy

valves and meters and hopefully safety equipment, and all that stuff is probably housed inside of a building made of walls and a ceiling in most of the times. My mind went all the way to floor, man. Yeah, floor. Right. It was overthinking this. This facility in Bhopal, based on the images I looked up, it was pretty much the opposite of all the things I just named. They went with more of a

open air mall layout for their collection of poison vats that you definitely don't want to get overheated. And they put them in a part of India with the same latitude as Southern Saudi Arabia and Central Mexico. Jesus. Yeah, the whole thing looks like witches tried to build steampunk submarines out of their call drones. Like old cauldrons that were no longer usable

for bubbling witch stuff. Yeah. I like that they don't even put it in like a cheap shed with an exhaust fan. You can turn off a regular bathroom as better gas remediation procedures than this. That's right. No, shit is like Walter White took more precautions in an RV in the desert and he was fictional. Yeah. Yeah.

He did. So, another problem that contributed to the eventual disaster in 1984 was a lack of warning time. The plant did get some official complaints about its safety standards, but that didn't happen until 1976. So they only had like eight years to respond to those. The first red flag was a complaint from two different trade unions that said, hey, we get that poison is your product, but your whole thing, it's just poison everywhere, not just like inside the vast. Just look with your eyes, it's all over. It's like a lovecraft monster is making French onion soup out of pure evil

Right like like at this point like other death factories are going y'all are fucking nuts over there You have to be entirely fair. I'm trying to think of a less effective body of people than a trade union in India in 1976 And I can't think of any group with less power other than the Democrats of people than a trade union in India in 1976. And I can't think of any group with less power other than the Democrats. Well, it was the Democrats. Yeah, I was going to say teachers union was constant. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So there were a few other warning signs also. In 1981, a worker got splashed with Fosje Gene, one of their starter poisons, and he panicked, so he immediately took off his gas mask like a fucking idiot, inhaled a bunch of toxic vapor

and died three days later. So pretty much that guy's, like entirely his own fault in the case of a fuck that guy. That's not really the point. Following the incident, a local journalist investigated the place, saw the terrifying state of the facility, and wrote a series of articles telling everyone

exactly what was about to happen. The titles of those articles in order were, please save this city, they escalate, that's the starting point, please save this city. Next was, Bopal sitting on top of a volcano. Okay. Then if you don't understand this,

you will be wiped out. She said subtle. And then Bopal on the brink of disaster, which it was. And then upworthy, published a bunch of clickbait articles. No one paid any attention to, too. Yeah, right. These Ted and deadly poisons will change your life.

Poison. And a cauldron, you won't believe what happens next. Two secrets, union carbide doesn't want you to know. One, get the fuck out of it. Yeah, this one simple trick, leave, nobody left. Two, don't come back, yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah, so that's what happened.

The public response to these articles was mostly like, I don't read the local paper. Also, I work at that factory. Not even sure why I said that in response to nothing. That ain't the case. Am I like pathetic? hypotheticals typing this. So, yeah, basically no response and everybody stayed put right next to the giant volcano of poison.

I mean, they're poor and they can't really move, but they stayed. Okay, but also maybe if they hadn't taken off their gas masks and showed off all that sluddy, sluddy face skin, this wouldn't have happened to them. Yeah, basically it was their fault. Got it, okay, I understand. Okay, all right, but look, I mean,

name three things in India that aren't on the brink of disaster right now, let alone 1984. Right, and a certain way you can't help is start deprioritizing the giant mustard gas works next door. That actually would have been better if that's what it was, seriously. Oh, God, Jesus. Really, really, really would have been, I'm pretty sure.

So, few more incidents happened in 1982 after those other ones with the splashing, the fast gene. And anyway, starting in January, was the first one from 1982, when a fast gene leak hospitalized 24 workers, none of whom was told to wear any protective mask next to the fast gene poison where they worked. Then a month later, 18 more workers got poisoned by a leak of MIC gas. Then in August, an engineer came into contact with some liquid MIC,

causing chemical burns over 30% of his body. Jesus. And this was followed by another MIC leak in October, severely wounding three more people. I'm guessing at this point, they must have started talking about safety protocol at some point after that, but the whole crew was probably like, splash fight! We have splash fights here

every day, so fun! So over the next two years, they also had more leaks of MIC and Fosjin, along with chlorine, mono-methalamine, and carbon tetra chloride. I don't know what those are, but I'm quite certain they're also bad. And apparently, sometimes those leaks, I just described we're in like, fun little combinations in tandem. So you could like, you figure out if this is one of the time. I'm a little bit more talkative.

Therein is the problem, right? I don't know what methamano, methamlamine or whatever. I feel like we should have a rule where the name of your chemical has to be at least approximately as scary as what it does, right? Like my own death of me and that was still like that would still even fit the line of the better. Yeah. And I mean, I think a lot of it could change in the workplace. Be like, all right, honey, I'm off to work. Oh, new business cards, by the way, turns out I'm now a

face melting lung liquefaction and slow death juice technician level great uh... business card melted that was weird that's what i know that i get what you're doing i understand where you're going right now yet so uh... now it's october of nineteen eighty four and uh... the world demand for extremely toxic pesticides has been going down sharply for a few years at this point.

But the guys in charge of union carbide, we're like, nah, they're gonna want the poison again soon. Everybody, everybody wants more poison eventually. Wah-ah-ah. So, plants in full swing, producing way too much MIC, and storing it in three giant tanks 68,000 liters each on each tank that were labeled tank e6 10 e6 11 and

619 go fuck yourself No idea why that's the numbering system. The factory did actually have a few safety regulations. It doesn't sound like it, but they did. And one of them said that none of the tanks of MIC should ever be filled above 50% with that stuff. And that would be a max of 30 tons. They got a bit dangerous to go above 30 tons of the extreme energy. Excessive. And over more than 60,000 pounds of pure eating on one tank, we could have more,

but then we have to have more tanks. Got to have the rule really. Be reasonable about the pure evil tanks, yeah. And so they'd keep the tank pressurized with pure nitrogen gas so they could pump out the MIC when they needed it. But in late October, the nitrogen system failed on tank E610, and they couldn't pump out the MIC. And at this point, there were 42 tons of it in the tank.

What? Yeah, well, remember the max was 30, but 30 ton mags, that's just like a, that's just like a loose guideline for the deadly poison. You don't want to be super strict on that shit. Yeah. I've only, they had filled these fucking tanks with something safer like molasses. Nope. Nope. They've got 42 tons of highly reactive poison that they can't move and Pretty much every single part of their safety system for my C was falling apart also so they halt production of my C

They verify that all their stuff is in fact broken and They go ahead and resume production in late November what and I didn't skip over the part where they fixed everything. They might have sounded like that's what also happened there. Nope, they just started up again because again, they felt like it. And a few days later, they earned themselves an episode of a podcast. Congrats. Oh, like this podcast, what would happen?

Would one of them become an obscure magician? Is that how they would do that? So that brings us to December 2nd 1984. You didn't cause a great date to giggle your way into it. I really had to like bring it. I don't know. I love that you're your transition from the giggle to the depressed. That was really good.

I was impressed. 1984. December 2nd. From a tone. Yeah. So December 2nd 1984 is the date and Union Carbide has a crew trying to unclog tank E610 so they can use all that poison to make poison and make everything safe again. Right.

But somehow a bunch of water got into a side pipe of the tank and it started to run away exothermic reaction. And the reaction was made even worse by the rust from the inside of their stainful steel cauldrons. Also by the hot climate of the location they chose for their poison factory. And by the presence of other different poison from again their constant splash fights that they were having so much fun with. So the giant rusty tank started getting way too hot. Okay, all right. I feel like once we've reached a point where, you know, somehow water got into a pipe equals death on a historic scale. We've already lost the game and we're just waiting for the refs to call time, right? Yeah, no shit, right?

Like unclogging the overfilled rusty poison storage tank has to be a terrible job even for India. Like, yeah, I can't imagine anybody touching this. It seems like it would be untouched. That's awesome. Oh. Oh. Oh, it just still exists. It just still exists. It still exists. It's real. Yeah. So as the exothermic reaction continued,

and the tank heated up, the internal pressure went from its normal level of two pounds per square inch at 10.30 pm that night, up to 10 psi in the next half hour by 11 pm. Wow. Okay. This is a great time for everybody to pause and appreciate this moment because for the rest of the story, we're all going to look back with nostalgia at that wonderful time

when 42 tons of deadly poison was inside a tank and only 500% of its normal pressure. Fun times. Fun. 42 tons of deadly poison was inside a tank and only 500% of its normal pressure. Fun times. Fun, nostalgic times. So a crew member noticed the super high pressure reading and pointed this out to the management at which point two different senior staff members were like, nah, nah, nah, the gauge is obviously broken on that. There's no way the pressure is that high.

We'd all be getting violently ill from even a minor leak. I'm going to go projectile vomit right now. It's unrelated, but none of this is what's happened. And by 1130, everyone in the tank area was getting violently ill from a minor leak. Yeah. And Union carbide is posting an 11.45 on the LinkedIn, human canaries needed, apply today. Right. Only three positions available, four positions. Wait, wait, call it a half dozen. Look at the half dozen. Open casting call.

Yeah. So that's pretty much exactly what happened. Human canaries, seriously, like a bunch of workers are bleeding from their eyes and looking for the leak. And this is actually standard procedure in interviews conducted later by news sources after this disaster. The workers describe themselves, the ones who survived anyway, describe themselves as being basically human leak detectors, just walking around trying to play warmer colder with the

volume of fluids, hemorrhaging from their face as play warmer colder with the volume of fluids hemorrhaging from their face as the warmer colder indicator. You don't want to fight. I feel like there's a different eye related way of finding things. It also depends on what's hemorrhaging from your eyes at the time. Blood is linking out of all. Well, they finally found the leak somehow based on, you know, photons or hemorrhaging volume around 11.45 pm.

And they reported to the boss who says, okay, that's what it is. But we've got a T-break coming up at 12.15 am. That's pretty soon. No. Okay, I wanted to do T-break. We'll deal with this after the No. I wanted to do the T-brake. We'll deal with this after the T. Everybody, where you want T, right?

And everybody agreed they wanted T. So everybody fakes working for half an hour before the T-brake, you know that works. And then they take another like 25 minutes for a T-brake, probably some kind of interstitial skit at that point during the time of the T-brake. And during this time, the tank problem either got better or it got worse. It did not stay the same.

I won't spoil it, but it did stay the same. Oh shit. A lot of suspense. All right, well now that you're on the edge of your seats, I guess we can pause for a little apropos of nothing. I'm not sure if I can get it right. Hey boss. Yeah, Rosh, what's up? Well, you know that gauge that tells us how much pressure is in the giant tank of poison?

Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, okay, so it's gone past all the numbers and now it's halfway between the highest number in zero. And it's kind of like, that's actually kind of cool. Maybe it'll go around to zero again. It'll be safe then. I don't think, okay, but you know those giant lights on the side, they explode it.

Oh, well, that's not a big deal. I lost the deco sheet to what the colors meant anyway. So it's not, okay, and then really, and also every canary died. And then Sanjay walked by a valve and his face melted off like a rowal cup. That's Sanjay, what a cut up, right? Yeah, I feel like, uh, something else.

Maybe we should sound the alarm. What are you talking about? No, I'm not doing that. Everything is well within normal operating parameters. Besides, if I sound the alarm, we have to reset it And it's a total pain in the ass to do. Well, have you ever considered maybe Upgrading the alarm?

Upgrading! Are you crazy? There's literally no better alarm than a cartoon parrot with a pull string on its tail And we're back when we last left off a bunch of parched workers in India were quenching their thirst and Heath was being all juggie about it. So what happens after the tea break? Okay, so I am being very judgey about it. I judge you, everybody involved in this. So the tea break ends at 12.40 AM, and the crew, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh Whatever He's super job I can't believe the tea break part is real

No, that's 100% real I can't believe they took the full 25 minutes They were like 1239? No, no, I'm still on my 25 boss I'm still on my 25, thank you And you thought their union had no power Click 1240. Okay, okay. So it's 1240, they finished their tea break, and over the next five minutes, the temperature readings for the tank go literally off the scale of the temperature gauge that they have for the tank. Apparently that thing maxed out at 77 degrees Fahrenheit. What a weird number. Terrified. Yes. So the temperature was one of the numbers above

77. I don't know what it's like. Top my head. Everything name. There's a lot. There's so many numbers it could be. I could name a lot of numbers over 77. It's like what, 1.8 to Sillion numbers. It's not a contest. It's not a contest. Yes, there's a lot of numbers over 77. It's like what, 1.8 to Cylia numbers? It's not a contest. It's not a contest. Yes, but yes, there's a lot of numbers above 77. And the pressure was up to 40 pounds per square inch at that point, or 20 times too high. And that's when a concrete slab above the tank cracked in half.

There was an earthquake feel that everybody noticed, and the emergency relief valve burst open. Now, despite this safety feature that opened up a large outflow of poison and theoretically would reduce the pressure inside the tank, that didn't happen. The pressure kept building and got up to at least 55 psi or as indicated on that pressure gauge Fuck

I got him at the emergency relief valve when opened releases like emergency levels of poison like This is like playing just the tip with a vat of pressurized Exactly what it is. It's the same game. I'm saying it's the same exact game. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, one poisons your life.

The other one poisons people. Yeah. But they should have just installed those cartoon steam whistles on the top of the thing. I like, woo, woo, woo. What a love. I feel it when one of those just installed itself. Yeah. But then they wouldn't have been able to warn people.

I think that's important too. There was definitely a lack of funny cartoon noises at this thing. Yeah. The musical and the stage play will put in some slide whistles. We'll get a go. Yes. I love it. And just a review in addition to the emergency relief valve, which was intended to open at this point, but probably never intended to

Explode open. On top of that, there were three other safety devices that should have prevented any of this stuff from happening, but all three of them were either broken the wrong size by a lot. Judging. Or not being used because the factory again just didn't feel like it.

Just a lot of things didn't feel like it. So it didn't happen. This is like the Samsung Galaxy Note of Pesticide. You know, it just exploded any moment. Yeah, well, shouldn't go on an airplane with any of this stuff. So the first of those three safety devices was the refrigeration system.

It was supposed to cool the tank, obviously, and keep it nowhere near the max temperature on the gauge of 77 degrees Fahrenheit. This cooling system was shut down though, about three years earlier, and all its free-on had been removed like six months ago. What, what? And, I have no idea.

And considering they had no more cooling, they also disconnected the overheating alarm, which would have sounded at 52 degrees Fahrenheit, but they disconnected it because I'm assuming that would have just been like blaring for three straight years and that's annoying. Wow. And just for the record, during those three years, the tanks ranged in temperature from 59

degrees up to 104 because again, they're in central India. Okay. So the first system is a shared memory among some of the workers that have been there for a while Like if you told me to turn left at the refrigerator, there would be nothing to turn left at Yeah, okay, all right. This is like putting electrical tape over your check engine light and then filling the car with TNT while juggling Lit road torches That's approximately what's going on on a huge, huge, huge scale. Time's 68,000. Yeah, right.

No, that would only be dangerous for you and your car. Yeah, right. No. Scale it up. Let's see. What else? We had a couple other safety devices. Another one was the flare tower, which didn't matter either.

Normally, that would be a very large pipe that would collect any poison gas that might escape, and it would heat it up, and that would burn up the gas before it reached the open air. But at the Union Carbide Factory in Bhopal, instead of that pipe being very large, to go along with a 68,000 liter 68,000-liter tank of deadly poison. It was very small. It was a very small pipe. The Flair Tower had a connecting pipe that was recently removed from maintenance. So the tiny little Flair Tower pipe that wouldn't have helped anyway was connected to nothing

instead of connected to the tank. So, it didn't matter either way. See, now this is why you have to play through your Mario Maker-levels people. Just throw them the fuck out there, make sure that shit connects to something. Seriously, like all these guys remind me of my dad doing woodworking in the garage and telling me like, oh, those safety fences keep you from seeing your work. Growing up, there were like finger tips everywhere. He looked like a

decod cat. One more missing safety device. The third one was something called a vent gas scrubber, which would normally do approximately what it sounds like it would do. Any poison gas going through the device would be absorbed and or neutralized by a large amount of caustic soda, which already doesn't sound great. The safety material has the word caustic at the beginning. That's not encouraging. But none of this matters because the vent gas scrubber was deactivated that day.

And in standby mode. And well, apparently you can't just change the mode whenever you feel like it. It's in standby mode for a set amount of time. It's long, I guess, too. And then three workers hung a dart port on the side of the tank. Instead of using darts, they used a surface to air missile

on it. Oh my god. That might have made things safer too. I turned that one. You explode the gas and burns up actually. Yeah, it actually would have been better. It would have probably just killed everybody there at the facility.

So after the emergency release valve exploded open, about 40 tons of MIC gas got released into the air over the next two hours. And the giant cloud of poison was blown southeast by the wind right over the city of Bhopal. And that brings us to the next safety device that didn't work. I said there were three earlier. I actually meant all of them, which was more than three.

All anything with the word safety that might apply didn't work. So after the valve exploded around 12.50 a.m., one of the workers pulled the plants alarm, and that triggered two different sirens, one inside the plant and another that was directed outward to warn anyone nearby. Like, for example, the 850,000 people in the city of Bhopal at the time.

But as you might have already guessed, the plant decided to decouple these two sirens back in 1982. So they could keep the factory alarm going, but shut off the public alarm, because they didn't want to create public alarm. Yes, they did. They really, really did.

But that's exactly what happened on the morning of December 3rd. Both sirens got activated and they immediately shut off the public siren while all the workers evacuated the factory, hopefully heading upwind. Yeah, they actually replaced the public alarm with a music box that played go to sleep. It's sleep.

It's one last time. Yeah, it just starts playing an episode of Citation Needed. Yeah, it's okay. Yep, it'll be a fun number in the musical. So the public siren didn't help, and the news leak didn't travel very fast. The cloud of poison itself actually traveled a lot faster than the news of the leak,

which could have been a phone call right away but wasn't. Bopal's chief of police did get a phone call but not until around 1 a.m. and it wasn't from the factory, it was from a town inspector telling him that the people in the neighborhood of Chola were behaving in a manner that could really only be explained if they were fleeing a cloud of poison. Oh, shit. That's like, okay, we've got a 325 in progress. Yeah, again, no, yeah, I'm sure.

Yeah, they are fleeing a zip from a cloud of poison. What do you think I am? Some kind of rookie? 325 in progress, no, write it down and let's get some tea. That was at 1am. Now let's fast forward to 1.25am. Does that sound familiar? Yeah, it's 1.25.

I'm assuming another very strictly enforced 25 minute tea break. And that's when the police called the poison factory to ask, hey, any chance you guys had anything to do with the cloud of poison that I'm hearing about? Well, I heard about 25 minutes ago, uh, and then I had a tea break, uh, during multiple phone calls between one 25 and two 10 a.m. The police were told by the factory that, quote, everything is okay.

Well, there now, there's a, yeah, the cloud of poisons. Wait a fuck over here. We're doing finally. So several calls. You guys good? Everything's good. You guys good? I would just call him back again. Yeah, no, everything's okay.

That happened several times. But then the police called back one more time to be like, are you sure everything's okay? Seriously, clean slate if you were fibbing guys. Clean slate. At which point the factory guy was like, yeah, Things okay, seriously? Clean slate if you were fibbing guys. Clean slate. At which point the factory guy was like, yeah, it's us, it's us with poison everywhere. Yeah, so the Bhopal Police Department goes into crisis mode, but they don't have any useful

information because the factory is run by a cartoon rhinoceros. So they don't resist. They tell the city's main hospital about the leak, but just kind of guess about what poison it might be, which was a total shot in the dark considering the factory is just a giant collection of different poisons. The hospital finally got a real answer about two hours into the disaster. Really more like 15 years and two hours, but you know what I mean? To make it even worse, the real answer was actually even more confusing. The hospital was told that the leak was Mike, rather than methyl isosyanate.

And they'd never heard of that. Nor did they have an antidote to that because again, they'd never heard of that. Nor did they have any information about it. So they were just like, okay, the fucking factory guy said it was Mike, like the person, or maybe an acronym, am I seeing no idea? So they're just making shit up, trying to help sick people. No idea what to do.

Jesus Christ. So the factory finally got the gas leak under control sometime after 2am and by under control I mean the tank ran out of poison. They did Oh wow Okay, it's tomato tomato moment Good news and bad news boss We fixed the leak no, we didn't but we're out of poison. Yeah cool. Oh, our out of poison and the tigers got out

But other than that, we're good. We're good. The tigers will last long in this poison cloud that don't work. One of their things. Good news. City of Bullpile stole a bunch of our poison. We're going to need to bill them for that. Fuck.

But then about 15 minutes later, probably after a quick little espresso break, it's a plan. Turned the public siren back on. Seriously, 15 minutes after the week stopped because the poison was all gone. 15 minutes later, they were like, I will turn the public sire. This feels like public alarm time. And really all that meant was that everyone was poisoned and had to deal with an obnoxious loud noise. Right. It's kind of a big move to be honest. So by the end of the day, on December 3rd, there were at least 2,259 fatalities with tens of thousands more

who were severely poisoned, but didn't die right away, or didn't die, but got super sick, or disfigured, or whatever. Also, thousands of animals died that day. And according to a government affidavit from 2006, the leak caused a total of 558,125 injuries. Including 38,478 temporary partial injuries, whatever the fuck that means, and about 3,900 permanently disabling injuries. Wow.

What's a partial injury? You get half of a poison burnt? I don't understand what they meant by that. Temporary partial injuries. And then, well, I'm, yeah, I'm curious about the 520,000 that weren't temporary or permanent. So, yeah. So, following the disaster, a giant series of legal actions began that are actually still going to this day.

Right away, the government of India passed a bill that made them the legal representative for the victims, and they filed lawsuits against Union Carbide here in the US where the company was based. And in April of 1985, a federal judge ruled that Union Carbide, based on the legal principle of fundamental human decency, those were the judges exact words, Union Carbide needed to pay five to 10 million dollars into a fund for immediate relief before anything else happens.

And the company agreed to pay five million. Assuming it would not be an admission of liability. What? And they thought they were still gonna like wriggle out of the liability of this at this time. And also assuming, the payment would count toward any future settlement, which means they knew they wouldn't be wriggling out of the line.

Yeah, right. Yeah, whatever. India said, go fuck yourself, that's ridiculous. Well, come on, India, that's like nine bucks an injury. You guys, you're a medicine sheep and you can't count the dead people because you can't fix the business. That's a lot of money. I try to actually figure out how much five million dollars was in rupees, factoring an I can't count the dead people because you can't fix the business. That's a lot of money.

I tried to actually figure out how much $5 million was in rupees, factoring in inflation from 1985, but then my desktop calculator just said error and sprayed poison all over the room. I hate it when that shit has. Yeah, so after some more negotiation in March of 1986, Union Carbide offered a settlement of $350 million. But then in May, a US District Court ruling officially transferred all the litigation from the US over to the Indian court system. And this was upheld on appeal and it was decided that this particular Union Carbide plant was, quote, a separate entity owned, managed, and operated exclusively by Indian citizens in India.

Oh, really? Yep. Once again, India responded to the ruling and the offer of 350 million with GoFuckerself. And they claimed damages of 3.3 billion. Geez. Which is super low, to be honest, when you really think about everything.

We'll get there. This finally got settled out of court though in 1989 for a total of $470 million. Oh my God. And this was upheld by the Supreme Court of India with the provision that Union Carbide would buy a medical insurance plan to cover anyone who got sick later and that they'd also build a dedicated hospital in Bhopal to treat everyone. And Union Carbide finally agreed and they did that stuff

and they paid the money. Yeah, and, and, I mean, let's not forget, Union Carbide had to serve a month in prison, but they could do it from home. And that was all right. That's the whole thing, right? Yeah. Well, I gotta say, man, I'm really glad

this one had a happy ending. I was starting to work. Yeah, I'm gonna be honest with you. I was getting concerned. Yeah, it's gonna be a fun upbeat. I was starting to work. Yeah, I don't be honest with you. I was getting concerned. Yeah, it's gonna be a fun upbeat musical number to finish it out. Yep. $470 million, but brain and my Whirl!

Guitar and stuff, kind of like a rock opera feel at the end. Yeah, so the financial settlement was paid out and now it was time for the criminal proceedings. This started with the city of Bhopal, charging Union Carbide CEO Warren Anderson with manslaughter. But Anderson refused to go anywhere near India and he skipped his court date. So he was declared a fugitive and India asked for an extradition from the US. But the US Supreme Court ruled that they just, we're not dealing with this anymore here in the US.

Victims of the Bhopal disaster are not allowed to pursue anything in a US court. It's basically like Jerry Mandarin, they did the same thing. Okay, hold on a minute, are you suggesting that we didn't rule in favor of allowing criminal prosecution for individuals responsible for nefarious corporate action?

Clutch my pearls, I'm shocked. Yeah, that was shit, right? This is... Ah, yep. And the only successful prosecution actually came in 2010, but not here in the US. It happened when several plant managers who were Indian citizens faced charges in Bhopal,

and were convicted of negligent homicide. They each got two years in jail. They got released on bail right away, but they They each got two years in jail, they got released on bail right away, but they were sentenced to two years in jail and they each got a fine of about $2,000. That's fair. There was another attempt to seek damages against Warren Anderson here in the US

based on a law that basically says, okay, you get one last try if it's crimes against humanity. Apparently we have that. But it didn't work. The case got dismissed in 2012. The appeal was denied and Warren Anderson died at age 94 in 2014. Not of poison, sadly.

Okay, okay, so I get where you're going for a heath, but when you say it like that, people are gonna wanna hear your alibi. So, I don't remember what I was doing for a good chunk of 2014. Anyway, the immediate effects of the leak were obviously horrific, but the damage doesn't stop there. It's really sad. Without getting into all the wildly depressing details,

we already did a bunch of that, but without adding more, I guess. Let's just say this plant poisoned the fuck out of everything near it. Over the years, following the disaster, a bunch of different research teams collected samples of soil and water and breast milk of local women, big chunks of face cancer from people's faces you've ever taken from. And all those things, all those samples had crazy amounts of stuff you're Big chunks of face cancer from people's faces. Whatever they could find. Jesus Christ. And all those things, all those samples had crazy amounts of stuff you're not supposed to have in your body or in the environment. One soil sample, just, I'm going to give you one quick example.

One soil sample collected by Greenpeace in 1999 had mercury levels up to six million times the reasonable amount. I just called bullshit on this. We're supposed to believe that there was that much mercury and no one became a superhero. No one became the six million dollar man. No way. I don't believe it.

Well there was that one guy out there just like, I'm just so full of mercury here. Let me put it in your butt. I'll tell you how hot you are. That's my, it's my profile. It's my profile. It's my profile. It's my profile. It's my profile. That's what you're saying. That's what you're saying. That's what you're saying. That's what you're saying. That's what you're saying. That's what you're saying. That's what you're saying.

That's what you're saying. That's what you're saying. That's what you're saying. That's what you're saying. That's what you're saying. That's what you're saying. That's what you're saying. That's what you're saying.

That's what you're saying. That's what you're saying. That's what you're saying. That's what you're saying. That's what you're saying. That's what you're saying. That's what you're saying. That's what you're saying.

That's what you're saying. That's what you're saying. That's what you're saying. That's what you're saying. That's what you're saying. That's what you're saying. know what? Once in a while you can go ask to mouth. Yeah. Once in a while. So the actual value of the damage caused by union carbide, both human and environmental, it's almost impossible to actually measure and it's way higher than any of the settlements. So we're still seeing plenty of legal wrangling and the excuses being presented by the Union Carbide team are insane. So basically we have two main lines of argument about the cause of the disaster. That's like the crux of the argument. The victims are saying that the problem was corporate negligence. They usually mention

everything I just said in this entire story as their evidence for the corporate negligence. They also might add that Union Carbide inspected its nearly identical type of plant in West Virginia, actually, in September of 1984, and the report about that plant in West Virginia noted the following quote a runaway reaction could occur in the M.I.C. storage tanks and the planned response would not be timely or effective enough to prevent catastrophic failure and exact quote about almost the exact same factory. So again everything I just said in this entire story also in that little report and that report was never sent to their bo-poll facility they were just like that. It's fine. No, they did send it but they sent it by home in Canary and you know that story. also in that little report and that report was never sent to their boop-hop facility they were just like that

it's fine no they did send it but they sent it by home in canary and you know that story and stuff was he would need to do is add snappy interjections and a mid-report skit and that everything you do that would be a share around a little bit more tens of dozens of people would and that brings us to the other side of the argument from Union Carbide, who obviously realized they were about to owe billions of dollars

and had a team of George Costanzas show up at the factory and start making up the best possible lie, whole strategy for that. And they came up with the lone wolf disgruntled worker sabotage theory. Yeah, according to Union Carbide, some guy was kind of pissed about getting a shift on Saturday when he requested off and decided to poison the entire subcontinent. They're claiming this guy hooked up a water hose to the tank when nobody was looking and then just like ran away laugh and dive into the bushes. I'm Sanjay and this is Jack asphyxiation.

I mean, he seems like this entire argument still relies on building a poison factory with safeguards so relaxed that you can say, well, it's perfectly safe so long as we treat these central Indian workers just right always. Yup. And just to make it even worse, Union Carbide eventually commissioned a report to prove this disgruntled worker theory with like a JFK magic bullet demonstration to show that water couldn't possibly get through the immaculate safety system of tank e610 without a rogue super villain hose guy genius and Just to give you an idea about this report One piece of evidence was a tea boy who claimed that when he entered the break room at 12, 15 AM

to serve the tea, he noticed that quote, the atmosphere was tense and quiet, end of evidence. And, that was it. Yep, in fairness though, that report, they all said a bunch of other evidence too. And it sounds way more convincing than the T-boy thing, but regardless, and this is how I'm gonna summarize what I've learned in one sentence.

Even if you assume the rogue-hoser theory is correct, Union carbide set up a situation where a guy with a water hose could murder a city. Like, yeah, of course. All right, well, I guess my last question just got out source to India, so I'll just ask if you're ready for the quiz. Ready for the quiz. All right, Heath, here is a question I wrote myself and did not have any help with.

Great. If this was a superhero origin story, what would that hero's name be? A, Brown Canary, Bean, So good. Rambo Paul, So good. So good.

So good. See, Pesticide clop, Pesticide clop, So good. Like that. D, quick silver surfer. Those are brilliant. Those are real funny. You're a great job. That's really a tough venue. I felt really good about the last

trend though. You said you wrote those right? I definitely know a lot about super good. So that was my, my center. Exactly who that brown canary one was a play quick so quick so for so for his excellent But it has to be brown canary that's so fucking dark and mean and good Brown a it was a well actually when Cecil wrote these questions He didn't tell me the answer so I'm not sure. Cecil. What's the answer? It is a a is Racist as it can be yes, all right A is the, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, first blood. Alright, so I feel like we can all agree that a comedy show about this topic was in poor taste. On a related note, what should the video game about this disaster be called? Lean into it. We're leaning into it. It's happening.

A, lean it into the wind. Metal Gear Solid. I know. I'm trying gaseous. Metal Gear Gaseous. Let's go. B. Gas Assins Greed. Oh, that's so good. So good. Thank you. See, a passage to the fuck out of India.

It's not a video game, it's a novel, I just had a, here's a, D. Grand Theft Auto Lair and Collegist. He's a neat, a lot of this. Been carrying that pun around with me for 16 years, David. This is the closest I've ever gotten to in appropriate moment for it. Or E, bullpull out. Like fall out. No, Grand Theft Auto Lair and Collegate.

That is correct, sir. That is the right one. So good. All right. I got another Up on base joke here for you fantastic the Bo Paul gas tragedy were a musical see I told you to put a bit Not for later. Oh no music Are the essay and the essay it's amazing here we go a Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, Carbides for seven smothers or D Mama me asthma That is excellent. Oh Jesus Okay It's gotta be it's gotta be stinging in the rain that is just I'm sorry

I'm sorry huge Abba fan. It's mama me asthma So it happened to be mama me asthma because that's like to at least like top three puns I've ever heard in my fucking life. Just because even if you've gotten it right, Cecilia, you would have been the winner based just on Mama Miyasma. Okay, so we could do like a, like a Rihanna umbrella thing. Got to stay in the rain. All right, well, I guess I get to choose that. No, so I'm gonna pick you because you like the pun so much So it's you next week has that awesome awesome all right

Well for Tom Cecil and Heath I'm Noah thank and you for hanging out with us today We'll be back next week and by then I'm gonna be an expert on something else between now and then you can find us at Enter show plug here and if you'd like to help keep this show going You can make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash citation pod or leave us a five star review everywhere you can. And if you'd like to get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect with us on social media or check the show notes, be sure to check out citation pod.com.

And if you'd like to buy tickets to the live show, you can go to citation pod.com as well. We should have mentioned that before now. Yeah, link right there. You can just go right there. Live show in New York City, October 12, link right there. Yeah, just go right there live show. New York City October 12. Be there. Upgrading. Are you crazy? There's literally no better alarm than a cartoon parrot with a I'm so close to true. I'm so close to true. I'm so close to true. I'm so close to true. I'm so close to true.

I'm so close to true. I'm so close to true. I'm so close to true. I'm so close to true. I'm so close to true. I'm so close to true. I'm so close to true. I'm so close to true.

I'm so close to true. I'm so close to true. I'm so close to true. I'm so close to true. I'm so close to true. I'm so close to true. I'm so close to true. I'm so close to true.

I'm so close to true. I'm so close to true. I'm so close to true. I'm so close to true. I'm so close to true. I'm so close to true. I'm so close to true. I'm so close to true. What, gaffin poison? What? What? What? What? Take you to the killing floor of Dead Rock. That's... That's... That's... That was even weirder than the key party episode with that, okay.

That's... That's... That's... That's... It's just feet you throw in the bowl, I guess. But the Flintstones. That's... That's...

That's... That's... That's... Because they stick their feet on the bottom. But the Flintstones. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause they stick their feet out at the bottom. No, they never come to buy with a fetish. It just takes the bowl. Just like that.

I got my own. I'm out.