On that long, dark night
Thirty years after the world’s greatest chemical catastrophe nothing much has changed.
On the night of December 2, 1984, an accident at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, released at least 30 tons of a highly toxic gas. The pesticide plant was surrounded by shantytowns, leading to more than 600,000 people being exposed to the deadly gas cloud that night. The gases stayed low to the ground, causing victims throats and eyes to burn, inducing nausea, and many deaths. Estimates of the death toll vary from as few as 3,800 to as many as 16,000, but government figures now refer to an estimate of 15,000 killed over the years.
Aziza, mother of three-year-old Ruby and eight-month-old Mohsin says, it was a Sunday evening like any other. The family watched a Hindi movie till late at night and then went to bed. Around midnight, Aziza woke up hearing Ruby coughing. There was a strange white cloud in the room. Outside she could hear people shouting, “Bhaago! Bhaago!” (run, run). Then, Mohsin began to cough. Soon the whole family was coughing. With every breath, it seemed they were breathing in fire. They closed the doors and windows but it did not help. They decided to rush to the hospital. Outside, there was chaos. People were running, screaming, vomiting and falling unconscious. Ruby and Mohsin too began to vomit. They were unable to talk or see because their throats and eyes were inflamed. They had no idea what had happened.
All around them people lay motionless. Trucks overflowing with people passed by. Aziza and her family managed to board a vehicle that was already full of people. They arrived at the hospital at 2.30 a.m. But there was no one there. They dragged themselves to the park nearby and collapsed onto a pile of leaves. Later, they heard an announcement on a public address system. ‘We are in control of the gas leak from Union Carbide. Go back to your houses.’
Read more about this tragedy here.