Worst Industrial Chemical Disaster in the world - Bhopal, India

Bhopal is a city in the heart of India. It had a Union Carbide plant that manufactures the pesticide Sevin using Methyl IsoCynate(MIC). The chemical MIC was stored in large tanks, and there were 6 safety features that were supposed to keep the chemicals from spilling over into adjacent communities. On the night of December 2, 1984, water somehow flowed into the MIC holding tanks causing a reaction that would blow the tank and release 40 metric tonnes of MIC into the atmosphere. All the six safety features failed to contain the release of gas. The poisonous MIC gas escaped killing many thousands of people.

People were sleeping when the gas was released and they were woken up by coughing. The emergency workers lacked information or knowledge on what to do urged people to flee, but were not given a direction in which to flee. Many ended up fleeing towards the Chemical plant that was spewing MIC.

The acute symptoms were burning in the respiratory tract and eyes, blepharospasm, breathlessness, stomach pains and vomiting. The causes of deaths were choking, reflexogenic circulatory collapse and pulmonary oedema. Findings duringautopsies revealed changes not only in the lungs but also cerebral oedema, tubular necrosis of the kidneys, fatty degeneration of the liver and necrotising enteritis. The stillbirth rate increased by up to 300% and neonatal mortality rate by around 200%.

When MIC was released, the best emergency protection was to lie down on the floor, with a wet piece of cloth covering your head and face. This critical piece of information was not available to the people in Bhopal or the emergency workers. This information would have saved thousands of lives but was unavailable at that time. The world's worst chemical disaster would have been minimized had people known that information in time.

Critical life saving information provided at the right time to the affected people, will save lives. Hazard Networking lets emergency coordinators in various industries, storing hazardous materials, provide critical life saving information before an industrial accident happens. This timely and actionable information will automatically be released to the population and can save their lives.

London Bombing - Communications Failure

Londoners will remember 7/7 for ever. On this day terrorists detonated bombs on London's underground trains and a bus. These coordinated acts of terror killed 52 people and injured 700 people. Due to the coordinated nature of the bombings in quick succession, telephone networks were overwhelmed,  organized emergency response were uncoordinated and more lives were lost in the ensuing confusion. To add insult to the injury, it started raining right after the bombing.

In emergency medicine, there is this term called the 'golden hour'. This golden hour refers to a limited time window within which, medical intervention can help save a patient's life. During this very crucial golden hour, ambulances were dispatched to incorrect locations. Emergency personnel's radio network failed to work. They were unable to contact their main operations center and hence their response was not as effective as they hoped it to be. Telephone networks (both mobile & land lines) were overwhelmed as the volume of calls increased more than what the telephone network was designed to handle. In such situations, telephone companies start blocking "non-essential" calls, allowing only the emergency calls to go through. This stunted the communication and response even further.

Personnel from different first responder groups like fire, police & ambulance were not able to communicate with each other or with the doctors. They were also not able to locate each other physically and were unaware of each others locations and activities. Also, passengers in the trains that had been bombed were not able to communicate with the train drivers. The passengers had no means to communicate with the train drivers. Even the train drivers were not able to communicate with each other as their radio antenna was damaged by the explosion.

Situational awareness which is very crucial for dispatching necessary resources to affected patients was compromised due to the communication failures.

There were 6 major hospitals within half a mile of the site of the bus bombing. Yet, some hospitals were handling very high patient volumes where as some hospitals did not get any patients, resulting in an inbalanced distribution of patients. Ambulances were not dispatched to the proper locations due to the failure of communications.Despite communication failure, the heroic efforts of doctors, first responders & police helped save many lives. The relief efforts would have been effective had the communications network functioned as planned.



Instead of relying on CBradios and telephones, a much better solution would be to use internet based communication technologies. Also, proper software platform that provides HazardNetworking would have helped identify, study & respond to the crisis. It would also have provided much better Situational awareness  during the crisis.

Hazard Networking: Social networking for a hazardous world

Social Networking for a hazardous world......Lets, let that sentence sink in for a moment. It does sound paranoid, doesn't it? It does sound like fear mongering, doesn't it? I can assure you, that it is not some made up term designed to feed into your fear and paranoia so that I can sell you something. Instead, It is based on a need. A basic human need. The need to survive. The need to rescue and be rescued. 

Today's population increasingly uses one of the Social Networking platforms to improve their social lives or to spread a message. Also, people seem to try and use these platforms when in a dangerous situation or a disaster situation. These social networking platforms are meant for enhancing relationships be it casual or business. They are not meant to be used in a serious life threatening situation. They are not designed to save lives or help out a community in an emergency. They are designed to increase the outrage in a population after an event occurs. They are not designed to pass timely, meaningful and actionable information that can save lives. 

Hazard Networking has been born out of the realization that today's social networking platforms are not designed to handle neither  communication or networking in a life threatening situation. 

Hazard Networking informs people of the hazards in their environment so that they can take meaningful actions to mitigate the danger due to the hazard. 

Hazard Networking helps the First Responders, doctors and government agencies to help them identify an ongoing situation, analyze the affected population and to mobilize the necessary resources to save lives.

Hazard Networking provides effective communication between Emergency Managers, Relief organizations, Doctors, First Responders, Affected Population and the Concerned Population.