Bhopal disaster • Hacker News Board

Re: Bhopal disaster

#51

Post by ncmncm » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 2:22 PM UTC

ozmaverick72 wrote: post #39

acidburnNSA wrote: post #21

It's really surprising that this and the Banqiao dam failure that killed 230,000 are fairly unknown to the west while Chernobyl is a household name, which killed ~60 first responders and "up to 4000" from early cancer deaths (using conservative linear no threshold models of dose response) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam

According to the HBO series on Chernobyl the Russians deliberately kept no statistics on radiation related illness and deaths related to the accident. They said estimates ranged from the number you quoted to upwards of 90 000 deaths. Thanks for telling us about the Banqiao dam failure I will read more about it.

The same happened after the Three Mile Island meltdown.

Huge amounts of radioactive krypton gas were "vented", and, being much heavier than air, it all ran downhill and pooled invisibly at the nearest dam where, conveniently, only poor people lived. No effort was expended to warn or evacuate them, or to catalog the deadly maladies they suffered in their thousands afterward.

To this day it is easy to find people insisting in all earnestness that TMI didn't kill anybody. They are never interested in discussing the gassing of the downstream population.

Re: Bhopal disaster

#52

Post by acidburnNSA » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 2:29 PM UTC

ozmaverick72 wrote: post #39

acidburnNSA wrote: post #21

It's really surprising that this and the Banqiao dam failure that killed 230,000 are fairly unknown to the west while Chernobyl is a household name, which killed ~60 first responders and "up to 4000" from early cancer deaths (using conservative linear no threshold models of dose response) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam

According to the HBO series on Chernobyl the Russians deliberately kept no statistics on radiation related illness and deaths related to the accident. They said estimates ranged from the number you quoted to upwards of 90 000 deaths. Thanks for telling us about the Banqiao dam failure I will read more about it.

HBO is not a great reference in this case. The teams of experts from the UN and WHO said "up to 4000" using conservative models after decades of study. One small Ukrainian team said 90,000, and that's the number HBO and Greenpeace use. Actually HBO said: "Between 4,000 and 90,000", which really pissed me off. The scientific consensus number is up to 4000.

https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html

The crazy thing is that even if it was 90,000, nuclear wouldn't change much in how safe it is relative to other energy sources. Again, Banqiao dam killed 230,000 and fossil kills 4,200,000 every single year from air pollution.

Re: Bhopal disaster

#53

Post by acidburnNSA » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 2:30 PM UTC

cwmma wrote: post #50

acidburnNSA wrote: post #21

It's really surprising that this and the Banqiao dam failure that killed 230,000 are fairly unknown to the west while Chernobyl is a household name, which killed ~60 first responders and "up to 4000" from early cancer deaths (using conservative linear no threshold models of dose response) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam

disasters in china tend to operate at just a whole different scale then ones in the west, like take the Taiping Rebellion, by some counts the 2nd deadliest modern war and it's not very well known in the west.

But Chernobyl was in the Soviet Union. This was considered not the west, right?

Re: Bhopal disaster

#54

Post by ncmncm » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 2:32 PM UTC

arethuza wrote: post #44

ozmaverick72 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the HBO series on Chernobyl the Russians deliberately kept no statistics on radiation related illness and deaths related to the accident. They said estimates ranged from the number you quoted to upwards of 90 000 deaths. Thanks for telling us about the Banqiao dam failure I will read more about it.

Nitpicks: the Soviets rather than the Russians - Chernobyl is in Ukraine after all. Mind you, I wonder if anyone actually explicitly decided not to collect the relevant statistics or whether facts like that were simply ignored by Soviet statisticians if they thought they might give "wrong" answer - there being some history in that area with Stalin and statisticians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Census_(1937)

tl;dr the census accurately counted a deficit of millions of people, so the census takers were executed. There is no telling how many of the "before" count had existed, as previous counts were systematically inflated.

Re: Bhopal disaster

#55

Post by cwmma » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 2:35 PM UTC

acidburnNSA wrote: post #53

cwmma wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

disasters in china tend to operate at just a whole different scale then ones in the west, like take the Taiping Rebellion, by some counts the 2nd deadliest modern war and it's not very well known in the west.

But Chernobyl was in the Soviet Union. This was considered not the west, right?

I was suggesting why the Chinese disasters may have gotten less play in the west

Re: Bhopal disaster

#56

Post by acidburnNSA » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 3:02 PM UTC

zelos wrote: post #41

acidburnNSA wrote: post #21

It's really surprising that this and the Banqiao dam failure that killed 230,000 are fairly unknown to the west while Chernobyl is a household name, which killed ~60 first responders and "up to 4000" from early cancer deaths (using conservative linear no threshold models of dose response) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam

Bhopal was a major case study in the Safety course in my UK Chemical Engineering degree, so at least the lessons learned are taught in the West.

Oh yeah, in industrial circles it's very well known. Just not in the public at large or pop culture.

Re: Bhopal disaster

#57

Post by acidburnNSA » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 3:05 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #35

ckastner wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also bring up that example quite frequently. I believe that is because conceptually, radiation is such a foreign concept to people. Who can blame them, they only hear it in the context of danger (for example, when getting an x-ray) or catastrophe (Chernobyl). But they'll happily eat a banana.

The difference is that a dam disaster is fairly localized in both time and space and the damage is visible. When your feet are dry you're safe. With radiation, the area is poisoned for generations and the danger is invisible. You don't know whether eating that mushroom will lead to a birth defect in your next child.

That's probably part of it. Radiation is certainly a bit harder to detect with our human senses. Maybe if we put radiation detectors in every home and printed out XKCD dose effect charts people could make more risk-informed (as opposed to fear/uncertainty-informed) decisions.

https://xkcd.com/radiation/

Keep in mind that normal fossil fueled power plants are killing about 4.2 million people per year via air pollution, which is also largely invisible. I don't quite understand why radiation killing up to 4000 freaks people out so much more vs. air pollution killing 4.2 million/year.

https://www.who.int/airpollution/en/

Re: Bhopal disaster

#58

Post by linksnapzz » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 3:23 PM UTC

rudiv wrote: post #29

LadyCailin wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you expect America to come in and police other countries? No, sorry. India is a sovereign country, and is the only country empowered and expected to police industries operating in India.

You'll understand when we derive schadenfreude from the slow implosion of the hegemon.

Sure I understand. Schadenfreude is the only motivating principle the anti-american left has remaining, after all.

I just wish that, if American decline was a source of such joy for them, that they would do us the courtesy of not agitating for more work visas and American residency permits....

Re: Bhopal disaster

#59

Post by acidburnNSA » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 3:25 PM UTC

ncmncm wrote: post #51

ozmaverick72 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the HBO series on Chernobyl the Russians deliberately kept no statistics on radiation related illness and deaths related to the accident. They said estimates ranged from the number you quoted to upwards of 90 000 deaths. Thanks for telling us about the Banqiao dam failure I will read more about it.

The same happened after the Three Mile Island meltdown. Huge amounts of radioactive krypton gas were "vented", and, being much heavier than air, it all ran downhill and pooled invisibly at the nearest dam where, conveniently, only poor people lived. No effort was expended to warn or evacuate them, or to catalog the deadly maladies they suffered in their thousands afterward. To this day it is easy to find people insis…

That's highly outside the norm of scientific understanding on TMI. Please provide a citation suggesting the dose and dose rate that you think those downwinders received. I can help compare dose rates to expected biological damage and we can look into the likelihood of anyone being injured by it.

Here's a 1984 study saying the dose from Krypton (vented years after the accident) was insignificant compared to the initial accident [1]. Where are you getting your info?

[1] https://tmi2kml.inl.gov/Documents/2d-Other/(1984-08-15)%20TM...

Regarding no one being warned... again, where are you getting this info? It looks like they were warned by the Washington Post [2].

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/05/15/s...

Re: Bhopal disaster

#60

Post by acidburnNSA » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 3:29 PM UTC

ncmncm wrote: post #54

arethuza wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nitpicks: the Soviets rather than the Russians - Chernobyl is in Ukraine after all. Mind you, I wonder if anyone actually explicitly decided not to collect the relevant statistics or whether facts like that were simply ignored by Soviet statisticians if they thought they might give "wrong" answer - there being some history in that area with Stalin and statisticians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Census_(1937)

tl;dr the census accurately counted a deficit of millions of people, so the census takers were executed. There is no telling how many of the "before" count had existed, as previous counts were systematically inflated.

Fortunately we have dose maps from Chernobyl and have a rough understanding of biological damage vs. dose. Using conservative models, plus the medical records and interviews (WHO and UN got excellent access a few years after Chernobyl happened), we can build pretty good understandings even if census data was questionable. This was accounted for by UNSCEAR, who says "Up to 4000 may die early from Chernobyl" [1]

[1] https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html