Coinciding with the 30th anniversary of the Bhopal pesticide factory tragedy, we review the other nine worst industrial accidents in history.
On the fateful night of December 2-3, 1984, the Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal suffered a release of some 40 metric tons of toxic methyl isocyanate (MIC) that spread throughout the city in central India. .
About half a million people were exposed to the exhaust. The toxic gas killed between 7,000 and 10,000 people in the first week and nearly 25,000 people lost their lives over the next 20 years in one of the most catastrophic industrial accidents in history.
Thirty years later, the “toxic” legacy of Bhopal still lives on, according to human rights groups cited by Reuters, who have for decades called on the government to take over the debris from the accident and care for the families of the victims.
Coinciding with the anniversary of the tragedy, we review the other nine worst industrial accidents in history
October 14, 1913: Senghenydd mine
439 miners lost their lives in what is the worst mining disaster in UK history. An explosion, likely caused by the release of methane gas, startled the 950 miners currently working in the mine’s two shafts just after 8 a.m., killing 439.
September 21, 1921: Oppau silo explosion (Germany)
Between 500 and 600 people died in the German town of Oppau when a storage tower with 4,500 tons of a mixture of ammonium sulphate and nitrate fertilizers exploded at a BASF plant in Oppau.
April 16, 1947: Grandcamp ship explosion
It is the worst industrial disaster in the United States, with 578 deaths. A fire on the cargo ship ‘Grandcamp’, loaded with ammonium nitrate, in Texas in 1947 caused a chain reaction, with explosions at nearby refineries, a nearby ship and two planes in midair.
March 10, 1906: Courrières mine
With a fateful balance of 1,099 deaths, it is the worst mining accident in Europe. The possible cause was an explosion caused by the ignition of coal dust, which completely devastated the French mine at Courrières.
April 24, 2013: Savar textile building collapse (Bangladesh)
1,129 people died the day Rana Plaza, a building that housed several shops and textile factories in Bangladesh, caught fire and collapsed with thousands of people inside.
April 26, 1942: Benxiu mine (Lianoning, China)
The worst mining accident in history. 1,149 people died in the town of Benxi in the Japanese-occupied area of Manchuria. The cause was an explosion of gases released by coal, according to the United States Mine Rescue Association (USMRA).
April 26, 1986: Chernobyl disaster (Ukraine)
At one o’clock in the morning on April 25, 1986, engineers at the Chernobyl nuclear plant (Ukraine) began the procedure to carry out a previously planned test. A series of mistakes made during the test triggered the worst nuclear accident in history.
The amount of radioactive material released was 200 times that of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki explosions. About 500,000 people died as a result of the accident, according to the Ukrainian National Commission for Radiation Protection.
April 10, 1988: explosion of the arsenal of Capo Ojhri (Pakistan)
1,300 died in the Pakistani province of Punjab as a result of an explosion in a warehouse used by Afghan militants to store weapons. The missions and projectiles that were in the silo reached the nearby city of Islambad.
August 1975: overflow of the Banquiao dam (Henan, China)
Heavy rains in the summer of 1975 in China’s Henan province proved too much for the Banquiao dam, which burst in August releasing a torrent of water that killed an estimated 250,000 people and destroyed 11 million homes.
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