Cleaning Up Bhopal: The World’s Worst Industrial Disaster
Forty years ago, on the night of Sunday 2 December of 1984, people in the city of Bhopal and surrounding communities were settling in for what seemed like yet another regular night. The worst thing in their near future appeared to be having to go back to school and work the next day. Tragically, many of them would never wake up again, and for many thousands more their lives would forever be changed in the worst ways possible.
During that night, clouds of highly toxic methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas rolled through the streets and into houses, venting from the Bhopal pesticide plant until the leak petered out by 2 AM. Those who still could wake up did so coughing, with tearing eyes and stumbled into the streets to escape the gas cloud without a clear idea of where to go. By sunrise thousands were dead and many more were left severely ill.
Yet the worst was still to come, as the number of casualties kept rising, legal battles and the dodging of responsibility intensified, and the chemical contamination kept seeping into the ground at the crippled plant. Recently there finally seems to be progress in this clean-up with the removal of 337 tons of toxic waste for final disposal, but after four decades of misgivings and neglect, how close is Bhopal really to finally closing the chapter on this horrific disaster?
