CHENNAI, India — More than 25 years ago on a cold winter night, thousands of sleeping people died after inhaling toxic gas escaping from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in the central Indian city of Bhopal. A train full of passengers at the nearby Bhopal station never moved. Nobody on it woke up.
More than 10,000 men, women and children died in the first three days of the gas leak; in the following years, another 15,000 died of complications. Debilitating physical and mental impairments continue, as the water and ground remain contaminated by deadly methyl isocyanate gas, 40 tons of which seeped out. Today about 120,000 people suffer from impairments. Bhopal is the worst industrial tragedy in history.
Yet, those responsible have not been punished, not really. On June 7, after 25 years, a court found eight men accountable and sentenced them to two years in jail. They walked out of prison within a few hours after paying paltry bail money. All were Union Carbide senior officers when the disaster struck.
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