Environmental Health - Casestudy

The Bhopal Gas Tragedy
The careless siting of industry and relatively poor regulatory controls leads to ill-health in the urban centers. The Bhopal gas tragedy on December 2nd, 1984, where Union Carbide's plant leaked 43 tons of methyl isocyanate and other substances, used in the manufacture of pesticides, is one of the worst industrial accidents in the recent past. Of the 520,000 people who were exposed to the gas, 8,000 died during the first week and another 8,000 later. The impact on the survivors is visible even today.
Economic inequality and environmental changes are closely connected to each other. Poor countries are unable to meet required emission standards to slow down climate change. The depletion of ozone in the stratosphere (middle atmosphere) also has an important impact on global climate and, in turn, human health, increasing the amount of hal mful UV radiation that reaches the Earth's surface. This results in diseases such as skin cancer.
Development strategies that do not incorporate ecological safeguards often lead to ill health, while strategies that can promote health invariably also protect the environment. Thus, environmental health and human health are closely interlinked. An improvement in health is central to sound environmental management. However this is rarely given sufficient importance in planning development strategies.