Carbide Blames Worker for Bhopal Leak

Union Carbide officials said Sunday that the December, 1984, poison gas leak that killed more than 2,000 people in Bhopal, India, was caused by an angry employee who quarreled with his manager and was trying to spoil a batch of chemicals.

A company investigation is “now focusing on a specific employee of the Bhopal plant who was disgruntled and had ample opportunity to inject a substantial amount of water” into a tank containing methyl isocyanate, said Kurt Mazurosky, a Union Carbide spokesman.

An attorney representing the victims and a spokesman for the Indian Embassy here scoffed at the company statement and said the company is still fully liable for damages. The case is to go before an Indian court later this month.

Union Carbide revealed its charges first to Hilfra Tandy, editor of World Petrochemical Analysis, a biweekly newsletter based in London, on an all-expenses-paid trip to the United States to visit a Union Carbide plant in Texas in connection with an article on the company.

Wanted Trials in India

Tandy said the sabotage charge was volunteered by company officials when she asked them why it was better that lawsuits regarding the disaster be heard in India rather than the United States. She said they responded that “if we are to get to the bottom of this, it has to be in India” because that is where the suspect is.

Union Carbide officials refused comment beyond a short statement, released by Carbide spokesmen in India, Britain and here: “Our investigations demonstrate that the tragedy was a deliberate act, now focusing on a specific employee at the Bhopal plant who was disgruntled and had ample opportunity to inject a substantial amount of water into the storage tank, which caused the massive gas release.”

Tandy said Union Carbide officials Jackson Browning and Ronald Wishart told her last week that the suspect employee is male, an Indian national and “still alive.” They did not identify him by name.

Agree on Cause

An Indian government scientific adviser and Union Carbide scientists have agreed that the explosion was caused when water was mixed with methyl isocyanate, a chemical used in making pesticides. A poisonous cloud settled over the city, killing more than 2,000 and leaving tens of thousands of others with lingering health problems. How the water got into the tank had not been explained.

Tandy said Browning and Wishart told her the worker who is suspected of pouring the water into the tank with a hose will be cross-examined when the case is heard in the Indian court.

It was not immediately clear how the statement by Union Carbide will affect the suit for damages brought by the Indian government.

Stanley M. Chesley, a Cincinnati lawyer who has been appointed by U.S. courts to supervise the case against Union Carbide, said he does not believe any sabotage occurred and that, even if the assertion were true, it would not excuse the firm from liability.

Disputes Theory

“To me that’s just mere nonsense,” Chesley said. “They’re always coming up with the sabotage theory.”

Chesley said that under both U.S. and Indian law, Carbide would be responsible for the acts of its employees.

“Part of their negligence is hiring inappropriate employees,” he said. In addition, Chesley said, “if the defect is the decision to store that quantity of dangerous material, they should have foreseen the possibility that a disgruntled employee or terrorist could get to it.”

Monroe Freedman, a law professor and former dean at Hofstra University, disagreed, saying that under U.S. law, if sabotage caused the disaster, “that clearly could wipe out their liability.”