Human error has always been a plague to our world, resulting in endless disasters. We tend to improve our products without referring to the reasons or causes of a previous failure. In Socrates" famous analogy of The Cave he explains how man tends to reach new levels of understanding by "coming into the light," but yet doesn't understand why. In a similar way, we tend to make modifications on inventions without having a solid basis of knowledge on what actually needs to be improved. Many times a disaster occurs as a result of an error in human design as well as a lack of communication. Such was the case in the disaster that occurred at the pesticide plant in Bhopal, India. Millions of residents near the plant awoke in the night of December 3, 1984, choking and eventually dying to hazardous gas that had leaked out of the plant. The pesticide plant leak in Bhopal, India was an event that had lasting effects on all aspects of life of those involved, even to this day. .
The Bhopal plant was built, owned and operated by Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL). Union Carbide held 51 percent of the shares in UCIL, the Indian government owned 26 percent, and some 24,000 private Indian citizens owned the balance. Under Indian government regulations, UCIL was required to design, build and run the plant under government control and supervision, using Indian consultants and workers. Every aspect of the plant's design, engineering, construction and operation was strictly regulated by the Indian government, the State of Madhya Pradesh and the Municipality of Bhopal. Virtually all of the decisions with respect to the plant and its design, engineering, construction and operations were either made by UCIL or mandated by Indian governmental policies and directives. Bhopal was chosen as the site for the Carbide plant because of its central location in India, a railway system that spanned the country, a large lake which provided a reliable source of water,.
