The Bhopal Chemical Gas Disaster

“We are not flowers to be sacrificed on the altar of profit - we are flames, committed to conquering darkness, and we will continue the struggle” - Farhat Jahan, Bati Bai Rajak, and Rachna Dhingra, women from Bhopal during the 2024 U.S tour ahead of the 40th anniversary of Bhopal Gas Disaster.

In the summer of 2024, three women from Bhopal, a city in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, landed in the U.S. Two of them were survivors of the Bhopal Gas Disaster of 1984, often referred to as “Hiroshima of the chemical industry,” and one was an activist working with the survivors for over two decades.

They came to tell their story: how for the past 40 years the survivors have persisted with their fight to hold a U.S. corporation—Union Carbide—guilty for killing and maiming thousands of people in Bhopal.

In their six-week tour of various American cities meeting with environmental justice groups, students, and lawmakers their message was clear—what happened to them should never happen again and unless corporations are held accountable for their crimes, they will continue to sacrifice people’s lives on the altar of profit.

What Happened in Bhopal?

On the night of 2-3 December 1984, a Union Carbide chemical facility at Bhopal leaked over 27 tons of the highly toxic gas methyl isocyanate (MIC), poisoning tens of thousands of people in the middle of the night, most of whom were sleeping in their homes nearby.

The Bhopal pesticide plant of Union Carbide India Limited in early 1986, around a year after the disaster. — *The Union Carbide* *pesticide plant in Bhopal in early 1986.*

It is estimated that 10,000 people died instantly. Survivor organizations estimated 23,000 deaths until 2011, with an unknown number of deaths occurring in the last 13 years. More than 150,000 people are still suffering from the health problems caused by the gas leak and subsequent soil and water contamination.

Bhopal was not an accident. It was a predictable outcome of corporate double standards, negligence, and cost cutting. Between the 1940s to 1960’s, as global food production boomed with the use of high-yielding varieties of seeds and intensified chemical inputs, the period often termed as “green revolution,” the Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) was eager to reap profit from increased sale of its pesticides.

It decided to build a new pesticides formulation factory in India that would manufacture large quantities of the pesticide Sevin, a UCC product. In 1969, through its Indian subsidiary Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL), UCC leased land in Bhopal to set up the new pesticide factory.

Sevin is manufactured by combining alpha naphthol with methyl isocyanate (MIC). When the Bhopal factory started its operation, MIC was being imported from the U.S. and the final product (Sevin) was formulated in Bhopal.

This setup proved inconvenient for Union Carbide’s profits. Therefore in 1979, a MIC plant was set up in the Bhopal factory. The MIC plant was supposed to be a state-of-the-art facility, a duplicate of Union Carbide’s plant in Institute, West Virginia. However, that proved not to be the case.

We know this because in 2002, almost two decades after the gas leak, Union Carbide’s internal documents revealed that the technology used for manufacturing MIC (and Carbon Monoxide) at the Bhopal factory was “unproven.” That is, to trim costs, the company did not install safety devices and protocols that had been tried and tested and known to be effective to detect leaks and prevent fatal accidents in its plants in the U.S. and Europe.

As a result, on the night of December 2nd, 1984, when the evening work shift changed, the next operator on duty in the MIC plant did not know that the pressure in MIC tank 610—one of the tanks in which MIC was stored and which leaked causing the disaster at midnight—had risen by 8 psig in 30 minutes.

In addition, there were only eight “shut down” devices, whereas there should have been three times as many. In fact, at the West Virginia plant, the safety devices were automatically controlled through computer systems with manual back-up devices, whereas in Bhopal they were all manual.

Also in Bhopal, unlike in West Virginia, there were no emergency plans in place and local authorities knew nothing about the dangers of MIC.

Due to Union Carbide’s double standards and cost-cutting in Bhopal, the stage was already set for the deadly gas leak to happen that killed and continues to kill people in Bhopal 40 years on.

Disaster Continues

Even 40 years after the gas leak, the disaster keeps unfolding every day in the lives of Bhopalis.

Mural outside the Union Carbide site in Bhopal, India, 2010.

After the gas leak, Union Carbide abandoned the Bhopal plant and left all the toxic chemicals and waste inside the factory. Poisons from the abandoned factory have seeped into the soil, water, and bodies of people living around the factory.

Multiple studies, including a 1999 Greenpeace report revealed the full extent of the poisoning, discovering severe contamination of the factory site, surrounding land and groundwater. Levels of mercury in some places were 6,000,000 times higher than background levels.

Drinking water wells near the factory used by local people are heavily polluted with chemicals known to produce cancers and genetic birth defects. Contaminants reported in the groundwater include 9 of the 28 chemicals known as Persistent Organic Pollutants or, more commonly, Forever Chemicals.

Protesters urging Dow Chemical to take responsibility for the Bhopal disaster, 2010.

In 2001, Union Carbide merged with Dow Chemical, another U.S corporation. Neither Union Carbide nor its current owner Dow Chemical have taken responsibility for the ongoing disaster in Bhopal.

Generations of children born to parents who live in the working-class neighborhoods surrounding the abandoned factory bear the toxic burden of this corporate crime in their bodies.

The Fight Goes On: Bhopal is not Alone

As the women from Bhopal traveled across the U.S. sharing their stories, they met people from East Palestine to Cancer Alley, from Mossville to Southwest Detroit, from Wilmington to Charlottesville, and East Houston to West Virginia. They found that many U.S. communities are experiencing their own slow and silent Bhopals.

The representatives of Bhopal Gas Victims Association meeting with the Union Minister for Steel, Chemicals and Fertilizers, Shri Ram Vilas Paswan, in New Delhi on March 29, 2006. — The representatives of Bhopal Gas Victims Association meeting with the Union Minister for Steel, Chemicals and Fertilizers, Shri Ram Vilas Paswan, 2006.

The local groups and the women emphasized the need for building community, sharing knowledge, making connections, and work in solidarity as they fight corporate excesses wherever they are.