40 years after tragedy struck Bhopal, no end to suffering

Just after midnight as poisonous plumes of smoke wafted through Madhya Pradesh’s capital city Bhopal four decades ago, Gas Devi was born, gasping for every breath.
Her feeble cries were drowned out by the screams of men, women and children as they ran to escape the cloud of highly toxic methyl isocyanate gas leaking from the Union Carbide factory on the night of December 2, 1984, engulfing large swathes of residential pockets.
Some 5,295 people were killed in the immediate aftermath, and up to 25,000 are estimated to have died overall in the world’s deadliest industrial disaster that continues to haunt the lives of those like Devi and countless others born with deformities since that fateful night.
Devi, a daily wage labourer, has constant pain in her chest, one of her lungs is not developed fully and she keeps falling sick. “My life is a living hell,” Devi told news agency AFP, speaking at her shanty in Bhopal, the capital of the central state of Madhya Pradesh.
Even if she wanted, she cannot forgot the night she was born. “My parents named me Gas,” she said, her eyes welling up. “I believe this name is a curse. I wish I had died that night”.
Nathuram Soni, now 81, was among the first to rush out.
“People were frothing from their mouths. Some had defecated, some were choking in their own vomit,” said Soni.
A handkerchief tied over his nose, Soni used his pushcart to carry his wailing neighbours, many of them infants, to hospital.
In 1985, the Centre enacted the Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster (Processing of Claims) Act, granting itself exclusive rights to represent the victims and handle compensation claims. Despite initial demand of $3.3 billion, the government settled, albeit out of court, with Union Carbide in 1989 for $470 million.
As a consequence, 93% of the around 522,000 survivors received only around ₹50,000 each, that too after waiting for eight to 20 years. The government sought additional compensation ( ₹13,998.54 crore in 2022) through curative petitions, but the Supreme Court dismissed them in March 2023, noting it would be inappropriate to impose a higher liability on the now-defunct American MNC than what had been originally agreed upon.
Lingering health concerns
A study published in July 2023, titled ‘Survival Analysis for Cohort of Bhopal Gas Disaster Victims During 1985-2015’, after examining 92,320 victims revealed that men above the age of 21 were more impacted than others. Over the 30-year study period, 6,609 deaths were recorded, equating to a mortality rate of 7.2%, the study anchored by Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) said.
“Individuals exposed to the gas had a 1.30 times higher risk of death compared to those who were not exposed,” it said, adding that between 1986 and 2000, respiratory illnesses were the leading cause of death among the victims. Those exposed to the gas, the study pointed out, had a shorter lifespan as compared to those not exposed.
On Monday, an organisation working with survivors of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, Sambhavna Trust Clinic, presented analysis of clinical data of 16,305 gas-exposed and 8,106 unexposed patients who received care at the clinic in the last 16 years, reiterating what ICMR study had found.
Dr Usha Arya of the clinic said both obstructive and restrictive types of respiratory diseases were 1.7 to 2 times higher in the gas-exposed group compared to the unexposed population. “Similarly, depression was observed to be 2.7 times more prevalent in the gas-exposed group,” she added.
Gynaecologist Dr Sonali Mittal pointed out that several diagnoses were more prevalent in gas exposed women. “Hormonal conditions such as early and premature menopause were 2.6 times more frequent in gas-exposed women compared to those not exposed,” Mittal added.
Rashida Bee, co-founder of the Chingari Trust charity that offers free treatment to children of gas-affected families, believes those who died were fortunate. “At least their misery ended,” she told AFP.
“The unfortunate are those who survived”. “This tragedy is showing no signs of relenting,” said Rashida, 68, who has lost several members of her family to cancer since the accident.
“The soil and water here are contaminated — that is why kids are still being born with deformities.”
Waste disposal remains a challenge
Forty years on, the Union Carbide plant continues to haunt Bhopal residents, with over 330 metric tonnes of hazardous waste remaining in a shed of the now defunct factory despite ₹126 crore being given to the Madhya Pradesh government by the Centre for disposal.
“The factory could be converted into a museum only after clearing poisonous debris. The process of it is going on,” a senior official of Bhopal gas tragedy relief and rehabilitation department said, requesting anonymity.
Legal struggles of victims continue
In 1989 Union Carbide, in a partial out-of-court settlement with the Indian government, agreed to pay $470 million in compensation to the victims. But the victims themselves were not consulted in the negotiations, and received just $500 each. The current owners have refused to pay further compensation for the catastrophe that continues to unfold till this day.
In 1991, Warren Anderson, Union Carbide chairman and chief executive at the time of the disaster, was charged in India with “culpable homicide not amounting to murder”.
But he never stood trial. Anderson died aged 92 in a nursing home in Florida in 2014.
Rachna Dhingra, a social activist from the Bhopal Group for Information and Action, said true justice still evades the survivors.
“Until today, not a single individual has gone to jail — even for a day — for killing more than 25,000 people and injuring half a million people, and contaminating the soil and groundwater,” she said.
“People in the city are continuing to fight because there is no legal mechanism to hold these corporations accountable worldwide.
“It is ironic that in a country that boasts of being the third largest scientific and technical manpower, even the most basic figures such as on the casualties and health impacts of the disaster remain unavailable, 40 years on,” Nawab Khan, president of Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangharsh Morcha, said.
The morcha has filed a writ petition in the top court seeking additional compensation for survivors who suffered cancer and kidney-related ailments whose injuries from gas exposure were wrongfully categorised as temporary.
“According to official records, 90% of the 11,278 survivors who were diagnosed with cancer and 91% of 1,855 survivors diagnosed with fatal kidney diseases were paid ex gratia amount of ₹25,000 as compensation. The amount is inadequate,” Rashida said.
Citing Supreme Court orders of 1991 and 2023, Khan said, “The Supreme Court has clearly said that any shortfall in compensation to the Bhopal victims had to be made good by the Indian government.”
In Bhopal, artists have painted murals on the wall of Union Carbide plant depicting the unending pain and anguish of the victims who received meagre compensation and suffer due to inadequate medical facilities. But the pain and anguish of the city ravaged for generations on that fateful night of December 2-3 four decades ago will take more than monetary compensation and mural paintings to subside.