In a grim reminder of the 1984 Bhopal Gas leak tragedy, eleven people had perished during the late midnight hours on Thursday and more than 1000 reportedly fell sick with more than 25 fighting for life after leakage of gas in a chemical plant in Andhra Pradesh's Vishakhapatnam. Hours later on the same day, an incident having a marked similarity occurred in a paper mill in Chattisgarh's Raigarh which has caused hospitalisation of seven workers. Even if it will be too early to throw any definite comment on the two chemical tragedies since the exact causes are still on the process of being ascertained, questions that are being raised regarding the maintenance quotient of plants dealing with hazardous chemicals during the prolonged lockdown in particular and also the overall safety mechanism followed by manufacturers, will be all too hard to suppress.

A hue and cry is noticeably visible over the Vizag incident particularly because it has a disturbing similarity with the infamous Bhopal gas leak tragedy case, which, till now has remained one of the worst industrial disasters in the world, killing around 3500 and at least 1 lakh still suffering from chronic illnesses even after so many decades. And from this incident, it has been proved once more that hardly any lessons have been learnt regarding the ideal safety protocols that are the inseparable aspects in such manufacturing facilities. So far from reports that have flown in till late Thursday evening, it seems that the old game of ‘passing the buck’ is just about to begin with blames, even though in an indirect manner, being directed towards the workers for “mishandling of the gas valve control”, just as it happened in Bhopal episode where the theory of “workers’ negligence” was tried to be established. An unbiased investigation will reveal the exact causes and on whom the quantum of blame should be accumulated. It also needs to be ascertained where there were any laxity on part of the company regarding maintenance of the plant during the lockdown, and if so, under what ‘circumstances’. Meanwhile, irreparable harm has been caused to so many people as it is now becoming clear that the toxic styrene gas which caused the disaster have the capability of exerting long-term health damages such as increased risk of leukaemia and lymphoma and equally baneful effects on the central nervous system.

Legitimate questions also need to be answered by the stakeholders as to how much, for championing the cause of ‘ease of doing  business’ and putting into effect ‘business-friendly’ faces, the intrinsically linked laws thereto should be diluted? Anyhow, a neutral investigation is what the country will be looking forward to.