The Bhopal Disaster and Its Aftermath

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Integrated Exam - Reading Booklet

BACHELORS DEGREE – Year 2, Semester 2

June 2016

English Language and Study Skills III for Science

TIME ALLOWED: 120 minutes approximately

Instructions to Candidates:

1. You must answer the given Essay Task.
2. Read the instructions carefully.
3. Answers should be written in the Answer Booklet. The left hand page of the Answer Booklet can be used for drafting work where necessary.  

The Combined Paper is worth 100 MARKS.

Do not open this reading booklet

until instructed to do so.

未经准许请勿打开读物册

This booklet must be returned to the invigilator at the end of the reading period (30 minutes). Failure to do so will be deemed as academic misconduct and will be dealt with according to the University’s policy.

This is a blank page.

Task 2 - Reading and note taking:

You have 30 minutes to take notes on the following readings. Do not copy full sentences, but you can use subject specific language such as key verbs and nouns. The reading will be taken away after 30 minutes so DO NOT highlight or write on the reading paper.

TEXT 1

The Shenzhen Landslide

By C. Buckley and A. Ramzy, 2015.

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In general, the factors which influence whether a landslide will occur typically include slope angle, climate, weathering of soil and rock layers, water content, vegetation, overloading (the downward weight exceeding the friction holding the weight in place), geology, and slope stability. How these factors interrelate is important in understanding what causes landslides along with an understanding of the impact humans have on these factors by altering natural processes. Typically, a number of elements will contribute to a landslide, but often there is one which triggers the movement of material.

Natural causes include:

• elevation of upward water pressure by saturation of slope material from either intense or prolonged rainfall.
• vibrations caused by earthquakes
• undercutting of cliffs and banks by waves or river erosion
• volcanic eruptions.

Human causes include:

• removal of vegetation
• interference with, or changes to, natural drainage
• leaking pipes such as water and sewer
• Modification of slopes by construction of roads, railways, buildings, bridges.
• overloading slopes
• mining and quarrying activities
• vibrations from heavy traffic, blasting, and other shaking sources.
• excavation or displacement of rocks.

Shenzhen 2015

On the 20th of December 2015 a construction landfill on the outskirts of Shenzhen collapsed. It destroyed and buried industrial buildings and worker living quarters in a nearby industrial park.

How did it happen?

According to The Chinese Ministry of Land and Resources, the landslide was caused by an enormous mass of industrial waste piled against a hill that had been accumulating for two years, and thought to have become unstable through rainfall. A ministry spokesperson said, “The pile was too big and too steep, leading to instability and collapse”.

Covering a vast area of 380,000 square meters (455,000 square yards) and up to 10 meters deep, the landslide engulfed over 30 buildings, causing some of them to topple over.

Yuan Hongping, an associate professor at Southwest Jiaotong University, who has researched construction waste disposal methods in south China stated, “The biggest problem is that there are regulations, but they are not always followed”.

The deadly mound was built to solve another problem, the haphazard dumping of dirt and construction waste in sometimes dangerous or environmentally hazardous ways in Shenzhen, which is trying to shift from a manufacturing hub to a high-tech incubator.

Construction waste has been an unwelcome byproduct of that transformation process in southern China and in other cities. The rate of construction waste recycling is low in mainland China compared with neighbors like Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan, and China’s management of the massive amounts of dirt, broken concrete and other materials is far weaker.

In Guangming New District, the establishment of the dump on the site of a former quarry had been seen as a solution to the growing problem of such waste being dumped illegally at locations around the city. In 2013, after the closing of an overfilled site for receiving construction materials, that situation had become extreme. The police patrolled the city at night to prevent dump trucks from depositing construction waste in parks, drainage ditches or roadways, the state broadcaster CCTV reported at the time.

The local government promoted the dump at Hong’ao village in its 2014 work report as part of efforts to provide “strong protection for construction waste from the new district’s key projects”, but concern was growing. In January, an environmental consulting firm, Zongxing Technology, published an assessment warning that erosion at the site was “threatening the safety of hills and slopes”.

Many cities have had problems with the secret transport and dumping of building waste across jurisdictions, and it has also created a business in illegal disposal sites. Shenzhen now has at least eight sites that receive construction waste. The dumpsite operators make money on each load they receive, creating an incentive for high intake and an incentive to ignore restrictions.

The aftermath:

• On the 25th of December Ma Xingrui along with other city officials, issued a public apology to Shenzhen citizens.
• On 27 December the official who approved the construction of the waste dump that triggered the landslide, identified as the former director of Shenzhen Guangming New District Urban Management Bureau - Xu Yuan’an, jumped off a building in Nanshan District in an apparent suicide.
• The United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon extended his condolences to the families of the victims of the landslide.
• As of January 2016 there were 69 confirmed dead and 8 people still missing.

The land is no longer suitable for building on, not only due to the instability of the mud and concrete mixture, but also out of respect to the people who may still be buried there.

Several ways of dealing with the causes of this disaster were considered, and included raising dumping fees to encourage the reuse of materials and monitoring trucks with GPS to prevent illegal dumping, but these have not been widely put into place.

In other locations where landslides have occurred, their effects can be long lasting for example in a suburb of Dunedin City in New Zealand in 1979 the Abbotsford landslip as it became known, led to changes in building and subdivision practices (whereby a large area of land can be divided into smaller areas) in New Zealand, with geological assessment of the land now common prior to the approval of any land development.  The assessment requires a survey of the stratigraphy (a vertical study of the composition and relative positions of soils and rock layers to determine their stability and geological history (previous slippage, earthquake movement and water drainage). Land cover and landslip insurance regulations were also substantially rewritten in 1984 as a direct result of the Abbotsford landslip. Much of the land which suffered slippage has since been landscaped into parkland, with stands of trees added to help stabilize the earth.

Other less commonly discussed effects of landslides are the disruption to the local economies. Depending on the location and size of the slip, the loss of arable land and building sites, and fear of reoccurrence, often causes residents to move to other areas and perhaps away from the town or city affected completely. This may lead to a loss in taxes for the local government and pressure on infrastructure in the places the displaced people move to.  

Words 1030

TEXT2

The Bhopal disaster and its aftermath

By E. Broughton, 2005

On December 3 1984, more than 40 tons of methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas leaked from a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, immediately killing at least 3,800 people and causing significant sickness and premature death for many thousands more. The company involved in what became the worst industrial accident in history immediately tried to distance itself from legal responsibility. Eventually it reached a settlement with the Indian Government through mediation of that country's Supreme Court and accepted ethical responsibility. It paid $470 million in compensation, a relatively small amount of money based on significant underestimations of the long-term health consequences of exposure and the number of people exposed. The disaster indicated a need for enforceable international standards for environmental safety, preventative strategies to avoid similar accidents and industrial disaster preparedness.

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