Physician Recalls India Disaster After 20 Years

DANBURY — Last month, in preparation for the 20th anniversary of the Bhopal, India, chemical disaster, a local physician returned to the city to reenact her role in treating victims of the tragedy.

Kumkum Modwel, MD, a family practice physician who joined the Danbury Hospital medical staff in 2003 and is now a physician with Brookfield Family Medicine, was asked by the BBC to participate in preparing its documentary about Bhopal.

In December 1984, Dr Modwel was working as the medical officer for the Union Carbide Company at its Bhopal plant, where she was primarily responsible for occupational medicine. Her responsibilities included implementing procedures to prevent, limit, and treat exposures to the chemicals being processed in the plant. She studied the unique toxicology of such chemicals as methyl-iso-cyanate (MIC), phosgene, chlorine, carbon monoxide, carbon tetrachloride, and other hazardous materials.

“While the plant manufactured a very safe insecticide called Sevin, the materials needed to produce Sevin were themselves quite dangerous if not properly managed,” Dr Modwel explained.

She specified the necessary safety and hazardous materials equipment and clothing needed for employees, and she ensured that stocks were in place by making weekly safety rounds. Showers and eye wash stations were checked. She became active in training departmental personnel in the procedures. When a leak or other exposure occurred, Dr Modwel treated the employees for their exposure.              

And, of course, the plant required a mass evacuation plan in case of disaster. An American plant located in a relatively poor area like Bhopal, a large shantytown formed just outside the plant’s perimeter, draws potential employees like a magnet. When Dr Modwel proposed revising the evacuation plan to include the area surrounding the plant, the wheels of corporate bureaucracy turned very slowly.

In the early eighties, due in large part to drought in India, agriculture suffered and so did the sales of Sevin.

 “Employees were laid off and parts of the plant were intermittently closed,” Dr Modwel recalled. That was the situation on the night of December 2, 1984. Just after midnight, because of a combination of circumstances that will be outlined in the documentary, water leaked into a tank of MIC. MIC is highly hygroscopic; it absorbs water and, in the large volumes involved, it exploded into a highly toxic gas.

At 2 am, as Dr Modwel was studying for an advanced medical board test, she received a call alerting her to the explosion. She recalls how the phone kept ringing and how she kept giving out the key advice: “Soak rags in water and cover your eyes and mouth. Use wet rags to seal out the gas from your room.” She took her own advice through those hours. At daylight, she opened her windows and recalls seeing the flowers in her window box withered and leaves burnt.

She reported to the hospital and began treating employees and local people as fast as possible. “The scale was massive; over 8,000 people died and countless others were injured. The injuries were essentially to the lungs and eyes. We soon ran out of oxygen, respirators, and medicines. We did what we could.”

Later that year, after aid agencies arrived, Dr Modwel relocated first to the Middle East, then to the United States, arriving in 1997. She completed her residency in family medicine at the Columbia University program at Stamford Hospital. In July of last year, she joined Brookfield Family Medicine, where her interests include women’s health and chronic disease management.

“After my experience in Bhopal, I find it a great irony that I should locate here, in the shadow of the former Union Carbide Company headquarters, and that I might some day be asked to recall what happened during the terrible time of the disaster. I am very happy being a family doctor,” she said.