What happened in Bhopal?
On December 3rd, 1984, thousands of people in Bhopal, India, were gassed to death after a catastrophic chemical leak at a Union Carbide pesticide plant. More than 150,000 people were left severely disabled – of whom 22,000 have since died of their injuries – in a disaster now widely acknowledged as the world’s worst-ever industrial disaster. More than 27 tons of methyl isocyanate and other deadly gases turned Bhopal into a gas chamber. None of the six safety systems at the plant were functional, and Union Carbide’s own documents prove the company designed the plant with “unproven†and “untested†technology, and cut corners on safety and maintenance in order to save money.
