On 7 May 2020, it was reported that at least 11 people have been confirmed dead and hundreds more hospitalized following a deadly explosion at an LG Polymers plant in India. The incident occurred near a village with a population of at least 3,000 on the outskirts of the city of Visakhapatnam.

It has been found that most of those who died were driving or standing on terraces where they lost consciousness and fell. Others have lost consciousness while sleeping. According to Mekapati Goutham Reddy, Minister for Industries, Commerce and Information Technology in Andhra Pradesh, three of the deceased were children. This incident will stir memories of the 1984 Bhopal disaster, widely considered the world’s worst industrial disaster. The magnitude of the two tragedies are different, but thousands of people have been affected and hundreds have been hospitalized. There are concerns that the death toll will rise. In 1984, within days of the Bhopal gas leak, 4000 people lost their lives.

Despite the difference in the scale of the disasters, there are huge similarities. According to the Guardian, the incident in Visakhapatnam was from two 5,000 tonne tanks of liquid chemicals. A local police officer stated that the tragedy occurred as the plant was getting ready to reopen following the easing of lockdown restrictions imposed in March. Tej Bharath, a senior Vishakhapatnam district official said, “When we arrived on the spot a lot of people were lying on the ground unconscious and we evacuated around 1,000 people and rushed them to the hospital.”

The leak in Bhopal was far bigger, but it was also from a tank full of toxic chemical liquid: hazardous methyl isocyanate. The two disasters both happened at night, whereby gas was released into the homes of workers and their families who were living in close proximity to the factories. Both plants were also owned by overseas entities. In the case of Visakhapatnam, the plant was owned by LG Chem, South Korea’s biggest petrochemical maker. And in the case of Bhopal, the plant was owned by the U.S.-based Union Carbide.

Many industrial incidents in India go unreported, making it difficult to get an accurate picture of how many actually occur. India’s government statistics reveal that factory incidents killed or injured 54,000 between 2014-2016. However, a report by the Guardian on 7 May suggests that this figure only represents a fraction of all casualties. According to campaign groups, the real figure is up to 15 times higher.

Workers are often unaware of their rights and when they are aware, they rarely have the resources to seek legal help. Many workers are migrants from rural communities and a large proportion are women who come from some of the poorest communities. This leaves them vulnerable to physical and other potential threats. In past cases, employers have even paid compensation privately in order to buy a grieving family’s silence.

Though labour laws do exist to protect Indian workers, very few are actually enforced. Workspaces are rarely inspected, and many officials are easily bribed. In 2019, a short circuit caused a fire in a workshop in Delhi which killed 43 people and injured 60. Despite inspecting the building on a regular basis, inspectors raised no concerns regardless of the fact that the workplace was in an extremely poor condition. Police claimed that they would investigate any corruption.

Owners also often manage to dodge punishment. With a slow criminal justice system and limited police resources, the investigation of industrial disasters are rarely at the top of the priority list. The struggle is also exacerbated by political rivalries or tensions between state-level and national-level governments. Tackling multinational companies and foreign owners is a time consuming and expensive endeavour. Following the Bhopal disaster, Union Carbide only paid $470m (£282m) in a 1989 settlement out of court. The U.S. chairman of the company refused to return to India to face the charges against him. In 2010, eight Indians were given a two-year sentence.

Reddy has stated that each family who has lost a loved one in the current disaster will receive compensation of $131,000. LG Chem will be required to pay what it can, and the government will cover the rest.