On December 2, 1984, a toxic gas leak in this town in Madhya Pradesh caused the greatest industrial disaster in history. At least 20,000 people have since died as a result of this contamination. Survivors and their descendants continue to suffer and demand justice in this case, which has become a global symbol of multinational impunity.
In the cold winter of the northInderesidents of Bhopal wake up vomiting, with burning airways and eyes, and a cough that writhes with pain. They don't know it yet, but they breathed – among other things – methyl isocyanate, a gas 500 times more toxic than hydrogen cyanide. It is December 3, 1984 and the nightmare of Bhopal commence.
A few hours earlier, a leak in the pesticide factory of the American multinational Union Carbide, in the heart of the city, spread a cloud of deadly gases across the city. This day alone, several thousand people will die of suffocation, pulmonary or cerebral edema. The sufferings are such “Let us pray to God to die quickly”remembers Rashida Bi, 25 years old at the time.
It was quickly established that industrial negligence by Union Carbide, an American company now dissolved within the giant Dow Chemical, was at the origin of the apocalyptic leak. The industrialist is also accused of having released his toxic waste into nature, lastingly contaminating the region's groundwater and its inhabitants.
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