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A deadly cloud of more than 40 tons of toxic gas
3,828 deaths according to Indian authorities, between 20,000 and 25,000 according to victims' associations
On the night of December 2 to 3, 1984, an explosion released more than 40 tons of toxic and deadly gas, killing at least 14,000 people according to official statistics. The accident occurred on a tank containing around 40 tonnes of MIC (methyl isocyanate), causing a deadly gas leak. The deadly cloud flies towards neighboring slums and then towards other areas of Bhopal over an area of 25 km². A movement of panic spreads across the city, and the trapped inhabitants seek to evacuate without coordination. Half a million people breathe in the mephitic substance which burns their eyes, skin, and lungs.
“In this city in central India, ravaged on Monday by a toxic gas leak, the victims were surprised while they were sleeping,” wrote “Sud Ouest” on the front page of its December 5, 1984 edition.
“She is three years old, a very frail body, foam comes out of her mouth and, with a final shudder, she dies before my eyes,” reports the AFP special correspondent. Nobody knows this child. Like so many others, she died, alone, anonymously, as a result of this toxic gas leak – ethyl isocyanate – which, at dawn on Monday December 3, ravaged part of the city of Bhopal. A chemical industrial accident of which the elderly and children are the first victims.
“While the last official report yesterday evening reported 546 deaths, witnesses and medical sources on site estimated that the number of victims would be between 1,200 and 2,000,” the newspaper continues. “In any case, according to the authorities, 200,000 people, or a quarter of the inhabitants of Bhopal, were affected to varying degrees by the disaster; 20,000 of them need to be hospitalized and 2,000 to 3,000 are in serious condition. »
According to the Indian state, the official death toll will be 3,828. Victims' associations will count between 20,000 and 25,000.
26 years later, the trial of the worst industrial disaster of the 20th century
The safety of the Bhopal factory, which had become loss-making since 1982 due to poor sales of its products, was no longer guaranteed and incidents increased. Union Carbide had never communicated to the residents or medical staff of Bhopal the nature of the products processed in the factory, nor the possible remedies, particularly with regard to hydrocyanic acid. The very night of the disaster, the company refused to indicate the composition of the cloud and the director of the factory.
In January 1989, Carbide paid $470 million in compensation, provided the Indian government agreed to drop charges against Anderson and the company. The authorities accept the transaction. Five years later, the victims had yet to receive anything from this amount administered by the Supreme Court. In August 1999, the Union Carbide company disappeared: it was bought by Dow Chemical. Under pressure from local associations, Indian justice ended up imposing additional compensation on the Indian state for the victims and funding for the rehabilitation of the site in 1991.
Union Carbide CEO has never been tried
Twenty-six years after the events, India has finally set about judging the Bhopal disaster. On June 7, 2010, eight people – seven former employees of the Indian subsidiary of the American chemical giant Union Carbide and the former chairman of Union Carbide India, Keshub Mahindra – were found guilty of the toxic gas leak from the pesticide factory. Victims' associations and residents denounced the verdict as too lenient.
Died on September 29, 2014, the company's then chairman and CEO, Warren Anderson, accused of “death by negligence” for this disaster and declared a fugitive by the judicial chief of Bhopal on February 1, 1992 for not s being presented to the Court during a trial, has never been tried by Indian justice.
