When Union Carbide built their chemical plant in the city of Bhopal they made it large enough to supply the pesticide market for the whole of India. The chemical they were making was very dangerous so they made sure not to store too much on site and had a raft of safety protocols in place to ensure that they did not endanger the lives of their employees or the many people who lived in the vicinity. The problem was that the pesticide didn’t sell as much as they wanted so dangerous chemicals built up in storage. Personnel changed over the years and safety features weren’t always maintained properly and taken as seriously as they had been at the start. When a new worker who had not been fully trained came to deal with a matter in the storage tanks he didn’t follow the proper safety protocols and every one of the failsafe devices failed to function. The result, in December 1984, was the release of a cloud of toxic gas into the air and the largest industrial disaster ever.
Five Past Midnight in Bhopal is the story of that disaster and how it occurred but especially of how the plant brought wealth to the area before it brought death. Dominique LaPierre and Javier Moro base their book squarely on the people of Bhopal. They introduce us to those living in the slums and in the area around the plant. We see how there were hesitations about where it was built and why it was always too large for the demand for the pesticide it manufactured. As we follow the lives of individuals working in and around the plant we also learn the history of the plant itself and we are shown very clearly how everything came together to create the disaster.
This is a gripping book even for those of us who understand little about chemistry because it is about people, the decisions they make, and their tensions and conflicts. It is at its most compelling when we come to the events of the night of the discharge and learn what happens to the people we have been following, both then and afterward. There are some great acts of heroism here but mostly the book is sad and the outcomes for so many are horrific.
This book is interesting and informative and very scary (especially for those of us who used to live within sight of a chemical plant). If you want to read more about disaster and how it happens and what happens to people caught up in it I recommend Deep Down Dark about the 33 Chilean miners trapped underground (see here for review), When the Dust Settles about disaster planning and management (see review here), Midnight in Chernobyl (see review here, and Fall and Rise about the people caught up in the events of 9/11 (see review here).
Anne Is Reading 