Yerba mate from Spanish ea mate Portuguese ervamate v mate or v mat Guarani kaa, IPA is a species of the holly. Spanish Moss has no relation to the moss family. In fact, Spanish moss is a bromeliad. Learn more about Spanish moss here. Top 10 of natural and anthropogenic environmental disasters. Into the Book is a reading comprehension resource for elementary students and teachers. Spanish Plant' title='Spanish Plant' />Environmental disasters. Note The division in the top 1. It does not imply that one specific disaster is worse than another. Anthropogenic environmental disasters. Bhopal the Union Carbide gas leak. Chernobyl Russian nuclear power plant explosion. Seveso Italian dioxin crisis. The 1. 95. 2 London smog disaster. Program Axn White Romania'>Program Axn White Romania. Major oil spills of the 2. The Love Canal chemical waste dump. The Baia Mare cyanide spill. The European BSE crisis. Spanish waste water spill. The Three Mile Island near nuclear disaster. Bhopal the Union Carbide gas leak. December 3, 1. 98. Bhopal in Madya Pradesh county, India. Bookcover/6428/9781425846428.jpg' alt='Spanish Plant' title='Spanish Plant' />Shortly after midnight, a poisonous gas cloud escaped from the Union Carbide India Limited UCIL pesticide factory. The cloud contained 1. MIC, covering an area of more than 3. Spanish Plant' title='Spanish Plant' />The gas leak killed at least 4. These health problems killed around 1. Approximately 1. 00. Research conducted by the BBC in 2. This event is now known as the worst industrial environmental disaster to ever have occurred. Note that the numbers of victims are not absolute, as they are different for every organization that describes the accident in books or on their websites. Particularly the Union Carbide company states a much lower total number of victims. The cause of the accident has been researched after the disaster. Apparently water ended up in MIC storage tanks, causing an exothermal reaction that released an amount of poisonous gas large enough to open the safety valves. Normally scrubbers would intercept escaping gas, but these were temporarily out of order for repair. Research showed that factory personnel neglected a number of safety procedures. There were no valves to prevent water from entering the storage tanks. XS.jpg' alt='Spanish Plant' title='Spanish Plant' />Plant Translation to Spanish, pronunciation, and forum discussions. The cooling installation of the tanks and the flaring installation that might have flared the gas that was released were out of order fig. Safety was very low in this factory of Union Carbide, compared to its other locations. The safety procedures were neglected because of budget cuts. Figure 1 overview of events that led to the Bhopal disaster Bhopal Medical Appeal, 2. Union Carbide was accused of deliberate evasion of regular safety procedures. During lawsuits where victims demanded compensation, documents were revealed which proved that Union Carbide regularly used untested technology in the Bhopal factory. When the gas leak occurred doctors were not informed of the nature of the gas. This caused the correct treatment and emergency measures to be held off. The manager of Union Carbide, Warren Anderson, was accused of culpable homicide. However, he did not occur in court and both the Indian and American government did not take adequate measures to make sure this man was tried. This led to a series of protests organized by environmental organizations, such as Greenpeace. Union Carbide denied responsibility for the accident on their website, stating that The Bhopal plant was owned and operated by Union Carbide India, Limited UCIL, an Indian company in which Union Carbide Corporation held just over half the stock. The other stockholders included Indian financial institutions and thousands of private investors in India. The plant was designed, built, and managed by UCIL using Indian consultants and workers. About the cause of the accident, they claimed that A thorough investigation was conducted by the engineering consulting firm Arthur D. Little. Its conclusion the gas leak could only have been caused by deliberate sabotage. Someone purposely put water in the gas storage tank, causing a massive chemical reaction. Install Microsoft Office 2013 Wine. Process safety systems had been put in place that would have kept the water from entering into the tank by accident. After a long procedure in February 1. Union Carbide promised to pay 4. Only a very small part of this compensation was paid to survivors of the environmental disaster. Union Carbide states on its website that it paid the full settlement to the Indian government within 1. In 2. 00. 4 the Supreme Court forced the Indian government to pay the remaining 3. Union Carbide sold the Indian factory to a battery producer. In 2. 00. 1 Dow Chemical Company took control of Union Carbide. These take overs led to a discussion on responsibility for cleaning up the tons of poisonous waste that are still present in the environment consequential to the 1. Environmental activists are trying to convince Dow Chemical Company to clean up this potential minefield of toxic chemicals. These could cause nervous system failure, liver and kidney disease and possibly cancer for many years to come. Today, the location is still polluted with thousands of tons of toxic chemicals, such as hexachlorobenzene and mercury. These chemicals are stored in open barrels. Rainfall causes rinsing out of pollution to local drinking water sources. According to BBC research, some wells even contain up to 5. Local residents still suffer from a number of diseases, which appear to be very uncommon among people that do not live in the disaster area. Chernobyl Russian nuclear power plant explosion. On April 2. 6, 1. Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, located 8. Kiev. These tests required part of the security system to be shut down. Errors in the reactor design and errors in judgment of the personnel of the power plant caused cooling water to start boiling. This caused reactor stress, resulting in energy production increases to ten times the normal level. Temperatures reached more than 2. C, causing fuel rod melting and further cooling water boiling. Extreme pressures in cooling water pipes resulted in cracks, which caused steam to escape. At 1 2. 3h in the middle of the night the escaped steam caused an explosion slamming off the roof of the building, starting a major fire and simultaneously forming an atmospheric cloud containing approximately 1. Fire and explosion instantly killed 3. Two days after the explosion, the Swedish national radio reported that 1. Moscow to officially respond. The following day over 1. This area was labelled the special zone. The evacuation of the special zone was permanent, as the high levels of radioactivity have been predicted to exist for several centuries. The radioactive cloud was blown north and northwest by wind, causing the first mention of the accident to be after radioactivity measurements in Sweden. The cloud covered a large area in Europe. On May 2, the cloud even reached the Netherlands, causing fresh fruit and vegetable consumption to be prohibited. There are many estimates concerning the number of victims that suffer from symptoms induced by radiation. Reliable data is still lacking. The World Health Organization WHO stated that approximately 8. These people only remained in the area for short periods of time to prevent health problems. Ukrainian government figures show that more than 8. Ukrainians have died as a result of exposure to radiation during the first cleanup operation. It is stated that the eventual death toll resulting from the nuclear explosion ranges from 3. The people that have lived in the Chernobyl area during the accident suffer from various health problems. Immediately following the accident, hundreds of people were diagnosed with radiation sickness. Flash Intro Source File there. Particularly in Belarus, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of thyroid cancers 2. Children of Chernobyl victims suffer from birth defects 2. Approximately 6. 4 of all Ukrainian children under 1. Genetic defects often result in mutations causing missing limbs see picture.