On the early morning of december the 3rd 1984, in the town of Bhopal (State of Madhya Pradesh), a tank of methyl isocyanate gas blows up in Union Carbide plant. A toxic cloud stretches upon 40 sq/m and about thirty tons of gas are released. 20 000 people die during the night, mainly while sleeping, because of the non-existent alarm system. The ones who tried to escape from the disaster got sicker, by exposing themselves. There is no evacuation plan, and rescue is not adapted. It's the worst chemical disaster of the century. Soon after, an inquiry was started, but it quickly met with obstacles, like the concealment of exhibits, the blood analysis of the victims that were made too late to be valid, ... All those being the reasons why today, we still don't know the exact causes of the catastrophe. Afterwards, 300 000 people would suffer, agonising because of the disastrous effects of the massive poisoning, while none could say if future generations would be affected.
Seventeen years after the tragedy, the victims are suffering the worst consequences of corporate apathy, bureaucratic red tape, judicial sluggishness and a civil society that simply failed to formulate an adequate response to the continuing tragedy. Union Carbide has paid an amount of 470 million US dollars with an average compensation per person for 500,000 victims of 500 US dollars each. Not a single person has been held criminally liable for an act that left 20,000 people dead and 150,000 maimed for life.