Question

Which gas caused the Bhopal gas tragedy?
A. Ethyl cyanide
B. Methyl cyanide
C. Methyl isocyanate
D. Ethyl isocyanate

Answer 1

Hint: The Bhopal disaster also referred to as the Bhopal gas tragedy was a gas leak incident on the night of 2-3 December in 1984 at the Union Carbide India limited pesticide plant in Bhopal. Over 500,000 people were affected in this incident.

Complete step by step answer:
Bhopal gas tragedy is considered among the World’s worst industrial disasters. In this disaster there was a leak of toxic methyl isocyanate gas at a Union Carbide plant in the central Indian city of Bhopal.
There were several consequences of this tragedy. The gas leak has significant long-term health effects because of which people who were exposed are suffering till date. The problems include chronic eye problems, problems in the respiratory tract. Moreover, the children who were exposed have problems such as stunted growth and intellectual impairments.
However, the effects of methyl isocyanate will depend on the concentration of exposure and length of time the person is exposed. Exposure to high concentrations could result in severe damage to the lungs and lead to death.

Hence, option B is correct.

Note:
There were three safety devices in the plant which could have averted the disaster had they been working properly. The three devices were a refrigeration system, a flare tower and a vent gas scrubber. The refrigeration system was meant to cool the MIC tank, the flare tower was meant to burn the escaping MIC and the gas scrubber, which had been turned off at that time, was too small to handle a calamity of this scale.