Bhopal: The 25th anniversary of the Union Carbide gas disaster
On 3 December 1984, the citizens of Bhopal in India were poisoned by 40 tonnes of toxic gas from a pesticide plant owned by the American multinational Union Carbide. The gas was methyl isocyanate, which when inhaled stops oxygen entering the blood, causing the thousands who died that night to drown in their own body fluids. Over the following weeks, 15,000 more died and hundreds of thousands still suffer from the effects of exposure and contamination of land and water. Twenty-five years on, campaigners say chemicals continue to leach out from the disused factory, poisoning a new generation of victims