One of the world's worst industrial disasters took place in Bhopal, India,on December 3, 1984 when methyl isocyanate gas leaked from a Union Carbide plant, now owned by the US-based Dow Chemical. The disaster immediately killed more than 5,000 people and poisoned more than half a million people in Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh state, in central India.

It also had a long-lasting environmental and health impact, the result of which is still being felt more than 40 years later.

Families cannot forget the 1984 gas leak, and are still struggling with the aftermath. Surekha Lakkewar can still remember the evening of December 2, 1984.

"Our eyes suddenly started to hurt, as if someone had rubbed chilies into them, and we could hardly breathe." 

Now, more than four decades later, India's Supreme Court has ordered the removal of the toxic waste to a disposal facility.

Editor's note (January 2, 2025): This video report, initially broadcast in December 2023,  highlights the alarming gaps in toxicity studies, including the findings of a 2009 joint study by NEERI and the National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI) that found that the factory site contains an estimated 1 million tons of contaminated soil, 1 ton of mercury spillage and 150 tons of underground waste. Activists continue to demand Dow Chemical be held accountable for a thorough assessment of environmental and health damages.