Scientists blame cyanide gas for Bhopal disaster deaths

Press, 3 December 1985, Page 21

Scientists blame cyanide gas for Bhopal disaster deaths

By

SHYAM BHATIA

Lethal cyanide gas of a kind used in chemical weapons was responsible for killing 2500 people in the Bhopal disaster last December, Indian scientists now believe. Their conclusions, based on hundreds of post-mortem reports, directly contradict the claim by Union Carbide, the American chemical giant which owned and managed the Bhopal plant, that the deaths were caused by the chemical methyl isocyanate leaking from one of the tanks.

The doctors say that many lives could have been saved if they had known cyanide gas was present. They now believe that many of those still suffering from long-term injuries caused by the disaster have been wrongly treated. Cyanide gas — or hydrogen cyanide — is a deadly poison. During the First World War, British and French scientists tested it as a chemical weapon, but Bhopal

is the first time that multiple deaths have been caused by it. The scientists’ conclusions, contained in a confidential report, are devastating for Union Carbide. The company has always maintained that temperatures in the tank did not rise high enough to produce cyanide gas, and that only minute quantities, if any, could have been present. But the scientists say that when water leaked into the tank before the accident, it produced temperatures of about 250 degrees centigrade. At this stage, they claim, cyanide gas was produced which poured out towards a nearby shanty-town. Confirmation of the presence of cyanide came from analysis of the "cherry red” blood they found in most of the victims.

The confidential report circulated by the Indian Council of Medical Research states: “There is evidence of chronic cyanide poisoning operating as a result of either inhalation of hydrocyanic acid or, more probably, subsequent generation of cyanide radical from the cyanogen pool in gas-afflicted victims.”

Dr Heeresh Chandra, head of forensic medicine at Bhopal’s Gandhi Medical College, who carried out some of the autopsies, says: “What we found is cyanide poisoning and, in layman’s terma, you could say the evidence points to cyanide gas being responsible.” Another medical expert, Dr Nishith Vohra, of the ' People’s Health Clinic in Bhopal, believes more lives would have been saved

if Union Carbide had realised the possibility of hydrogen cyanide leaking out at that temperature. Health hazard Information published by the company states that “thermal decomposition (of methyl isocyanate) may produce hydrogen cyanide,” but does not state at what temperature it may occur. Union Carbide has disputed the scientists’ findings because it says that temperatures inside the tank were not high enough to produce cyanide gas. A spokesman adds: “Based on our research and investigations, we feel you have to get MIC up to extremely high temperatures — in excess of 350 degrees C. — before you get any appreciable amount of hydrogen cyanide. Our technical people felt that temperatures in the tank probably reached between 200 and 250 degrees. Copyright, London Observer Service.