History's A Disaster

Running Toward Disaster: The Bhopal Gas Leak

• Andrew

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The air turned against its own city. We follow the chain that made it possible: a reactive chemical never meant for storage in bulk, a series of safety systems taken offline or ignored, and a community living within walking distance of tanks that required perfection to stay safe. When water slipped into Tank 610, pressure soared, alarms were silenced by habit, and the last defenses failed. What spilled over the factory wall wasn’t just gas—it was every deferred repair, every cut training hour, and every budget decision that said “not today.”

We break down the chemistry of methyl isocyanate in plain terms, showing how heat, pressure, and moisture turn a manageable process into a runaway reaction. Then we zoom out to the human map: slums built around steady jobs, “bad air days” normalized, and hospitals blindsided without hazard data. Through eyewitness pacing and on-the-ground detail, we track the lethal flow through narrow lanes, the surge toward overwhelmed clinics, and the dawn that revealed bodies in doorways and families separated in the crush. It’s a hard listen because it should be. This is how systems fail when profit outruns precaution.

From the scramble for accountability—arrests, small fines, and a settlement that barely touched the scale of harm—to the toxic afterlife of abandoned waste, we connect the acute disaster to the chronic one beneath the soil. We talk about cleanup fights, contested incineration plans, and the uneasy truth that removing a few hundred tons barely dents a million-ton legacy. Most of all, we pull out the lessons: real process safety culture, functioning redundancy, community right-to-know, land-use buffers, and hospital preparedness that starts before alarms ring.

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Special thank you to Lunarfall Audio for producing and doing all the heavy lifting on audio editing since April 13, 2025, the Murder of Christopher Meyer episode https://lunarfallaudio.com/


SPEAKER_00:

Nothing beats a good run. Whether you're outside enjoying the fresh air or at the gym and hitting the treadmill. The steady sound of your footsteps as they hit the ground. Your pulse picks up, your heartbeat rises, your lungs struggle a little bit for air. Okay, that actually sounds terrible. I actually don't like going to the gym. But then again, who really does? However, I don't like struggling for breath after going up a few stairs. Breathing heavier? Not a good thing. Especially when there is a massive gas leak that releases a large cloud of toxic gas. Breathing deeper only accelerates the issue. Which is what happened just after midnight on the morning of December 3rd, 1984, during the world's largest industrial accident. So, what happened? I'm Andrew, and this is History's A Disaster. Tonight we're flowing into the Bopol Gas Leak that would become the largest industrial accident in the world. And tonight's episode is brought to you by Huh. This would be a great place for a big ass fan to add. Real company, not my normal made up bullshit. Sadly, also not a sponsor. So, tonight's episode is brought to you by Windy Pipe Cleaners. Definitely a real company. Windy Pipe Cleaners has a 100% guarantee that they'll clear your pipes without any issues or your money back. In 1969, Union Carbide India Limited, a company who was majorly owned by Union Carbide Corporation out of the US, built a factory outside of Bhopal, India. The factory was built to produce the Pesticide 7, the brand name for the Incesticide Carburl. The factory was put well outside of the city center, leaving plenty of room between the plant and the major population centers. They put it out of the way since they were using some pretty nasty chemicals, like methyl isocyanite, which was eventually made on site. To make this, they used another nasty chemical called phosgene, which is colorless and toxic, as well as having previously been used as a chemical weapon, most famously by the French in World War I. So, not good shit, but the main focus here is the methyl isocyanite, which is typically labeled as MIC. Now, they were making this stuff in the factory, but it wasn't the final product. It was part of the chemical process to get to the final product. It was meant to mass produce the pesticide cheaply and quickly. Well, it'll do that. This shit was not meant to be stored and left sitting around in large quantities. Normally, it should be made in small quantities and used up as quickly as possible. The less time it's sitting around, the better. At room temperature, the shit is volatile, ready to go in an instant. Add in some water, and it gets so much worse. When it hits water, reaction is almost instant, generating heat. The heat causes pressure, which speeds up the reaction, which causes the reaction to feed on itself violently. And since water is everywhere, including in the human body, which is at least 60% water, you don't want this shit loose in the air. When it does get loose, it's a heavy gas, meaning it sinks low to the ground. When it's inhaled, it attacks moist tissues in the body. Eyes start to burn and swell, throats tighten up, airways spasm, and your lungs fill with fluid. Panicked breathing turns to a struggle before the body collapses as the unlucky victim drowns on land. Protection for using MIC typically involves multiple levels, from temperature controls, gauges to measure pressure changes, valves to bleed off excess pressure, air scrubbers to take out dangerous gases, and flares to burn off excess gas before it can reach open air. This, along with not keeping excessive amounts of MIC on hand, are the best ways to minimize the danger presented by MIC. But as we've seen time and time again, the pursuit of money and higher production quotas often override safety and common sense. Originally the MIC was made in a Union Carbide plant in West Virginia and then shipped over to India for use. But in 1979, they got approval and built an MIC production plant in India. It was supposed to be an exact replica of the West Virginia plant, but due to budget cuts, the computer system that controlled and monitored most of the safety systems had to be cut. So they would have to do everything manually. Because safety is definitely where you wanted to start making cuts. Anyways, with the plant built, they began to store large quantities of MIC, which made producing seven quicker. They would not have to rely on waiting for it to be made and then shipped over from West Virginia. This cut out any possible delays due to shipping or any number of problems that could pop up between West Virginia and India. Storing all this wouldn't have been so bad if everything ran properly, if maintenance was kept up, if there was a tight uncompromising safety culture. If, if, if. And that is way too many ifs when dealing with dangerous chemicals. And there are always a lot of small things that lead up to an if not happening. Repairs are pushed off because it would delay production, which would cost the company money, and well we just can't have that now, can we? The overhead is too high, so they cut out a cooling unit. Positions are caught, training is shortened, alarms that go off are ignored when they go off one too many times with nothing bad happening. Now initially, they put the factory outside the city, away from everyone. However, when you put new decent paying jobs in an area, people will move closer. The poorer the person, the closer they want to live to make the commute to work cheaper. So huts and ramshackle houses started popping up outside the factory gates. Soon small settlements were forming outside. No roads, no electricity, no running water. Just a group of the poorer segment of society coming together for survival and stability. By the early 80s, there were tens of thousands living within walking distance of the gate. Many of them worked inside, others sold teas and vegetables and other services to the factory workers and people living in these slums. The factory melted into the background of everyday life. Kids played in the shadows of the factory walls, livestock drank from the drainage ditches, and who knows what was in them. Laundry was hung beneath pipes overhead, its lights lighting up the nighttime sky. The smell of chemicals is a constant reminder in the air. Bad air days, as they called it, brought coughing fits and burnt throats. But life outside the gates went on. Inside the gates, as time wore on, what should have been a tight culture of safety was breaking down. The factory was losing money. There was droughts and famine in India, so there was not as much of a need for pesticides. So, cuts had to be made. Positions were cut and not replaced, so more work was put on others. Training was shortened. Maintenance and repairs pushed off because they can't slow down and lose money. As a result of the maintenance issues, a refrigeration unit was taken offline in June. In October, a scrubber that is supposed to spray neutralizing gas was taken down. In November, the flare tower was taken down for maintenance. Maintenance that would continually be pushed off. As the systems broke down, more complaints of headaches and sore throats popped up in not only factory workers, but in the slums outside the gates. Reports were written, but never really went further than that. They pushed it off. Over time, when nothing ever got done about complaints, people stopped reporting. They're not gonna do anything about it, so why say anything? Besides, nothing really bad has happened, so everything must be okay. Then the night of December 2nd happened. Night shift had taken over for the day. The factory was running a skeleton crew with sections of the plant not even running. They were understaffed and expecting a normal quiet night. However, in the MIC unit, shit was breaking down in one of their three massive storage tanks. Tank 610, which had been out of service but still held 42 tons of liquid MIC. They were supposed to flush the phosphine out of the lines. However, a safety valve that was supposed to stop the water from flowing in and mixing with the MIC had been uninstalled. Water and MIC mixed? Not a good thing. The reaction started quickly. Pressure inside tank 610 was rising. The change was barely noticed. Gauges on the tank shifted slightly out of the norm. Pressure inside the tank had jumped from 2 psi to 10. Readings were going up but were largely ignored. This was allowed to happen before, so it was routine at this point. When the faint smell of the gas grew sharper, they just checked the readings and adjusted some valves and left it at that. When the alarms started going off, they looked and then turned them off and moved on. Alarms going off needlessly had become the norm. But they did the routine checks and notified supervisors without any sense of urgency. Besides, it was break time and you just can't skip break. Minutes went by as the tank heated up. The heat inside the tank increased the pressure. The pressure sped up the chemical reaction. The reaction feeding on itself as it sped up. Cooling systems and safety devices were not working properly, so did absolutely nothing to slow it down. Pressure inside was hitting over 150 psi. The tank was quickly nearing its breaking point. Valves struggled with the increase. The metal of the tank was heating off to over 300 degrees Celsius. A relief valve was open to release the pressure. However, as the toxic gas traveled through the vent system, the scrubbers meant to neutralize the gas in the vents were not working, so the gas continued unabated through the flare tower. The flare tower that should have burned off the gas before it hit open air. The same flare tower that had been down for repairs for the past month. So the gas burst into the still air with nothing to stop it. No one really knew what was happening until the smell hit them. The workers ran. Some tried to warn others. Others fell choking on toxic gas before they knew what happened. There was no warning outside the factory gates. What little alarm system they had had been turned off. As the city outside the gates left, the toxic cloud from the factory flowed into their midst. Being heavier than air, it spilled along the ground, pouring over the factory's wall and into the city streets beyond. There was nothing to stop it now. People woke up violently choking and gasping for air, eyes burned and throats closed. The cloud was relentless as it pulled into houses and became trapped and grew thicker. Kids suffered the worst of it as they threw up at the first breath of gas. People panicked and ran into the streets barefoot, holding their mouths closed as some dragged others along or tried to call out to others in the dark. More than a few made it only a few feet before they collapsed to the ground as their lungs failed. Those that could run ran aimlessly, terror-stricken thoughts of suffocation forcing them to run without direction. As they ran away in terror, the pale, thick cloud followed behind them. Crowds ran towards the main roads and hospitals or to any open space with a false sense of hope. In the narrow and cramped lanes, the stampede became a crush. People fell and were crushed beneath the surging crowd. Families were torn apart and pushed away. There were no good choices that night. People became trapped in their homes as the gas filled it and they were unable to open the locks to get out. Those running were just breathing harder, taking in more of the poisonous air. People and animals fell where they stood. The streets were filled with bodies as they ran. They ran towards hospitals already overflowing. They ran towards railroad stations where trains would never come. They ran uphill when they could, believing height might mean clean air. Some wrapped cloth around their faces, soaked them in water, in milk, in urine, anything they thought might help. But nothing ever did. Hospitals would be quickly overran as the first waves of people hit the doors. The entryways were quickly filled with the sounds of choking and gagging. Doctors and nurses did their best to keep up, but there was a serious lack of much needed information. They knew something chemical had happened, but not what the chemical was or how to treat it even if they knew what it was. The factory owners never bothered to inform anyone outside the factory what they were using, what it could possibly do, or any ways to treat it. So they did what they could. They rinsed out eyes, they rationed out oxygen, they tried different medicines, steroids, antibiotics, pain relievers, whatever they could think of. It wasn't long before the hospital was overcrowded. Beds were full, and people were put on any available surface. Benches, counters, anywhere they'd fit. Supplies were soon running out. Oxygen tanks were emptied. IV fluids and eyewash were running dry. Too few nurses ran from patient to patient. Their own throats and eyes burned as they breathed the same toxic air as their patients. But still, they did what they could with the sheer number of patients, though they couldn't spend long with any single one. As the night dragged on, more and more died, filling the hallways with the dead. By morning, the first light of day showed the carnage. Bodies lay everywhere, on doorsteps, in the road, in alleys and bus stops. Some still clutching their kids protectively, some piled up where whole crowds had surged and collapsed. As the gas thinned out, survivors wandered the streets in a daze. Still barely able to breathe, they looked for loved ones amongst the dead, hoping against hope that they still lived. For many, there would be no such hope. The factory owners were quick to try and minimize blame. Information was withheld, which seriously hampered the medical response in the days after the leak. The plant was shut down immediately after the leak by the Indian government, who turned around and refused to share publicly any information they gathered as the leak was investigated. The city's infrastructure was put under a massive strain as they were unprepared for a disaster of this size. They had no real disaster plan in place, and shit broke down quickly. Hospitals struggled to keep up. The police fought the control crowds as they helped to coordinate body removal. Chaos and panic was rampant. Within days, temporary clinics were set up to help treat injuries. Union Carbide did help by bringing in doctors and medical supplies to help in the effort. The Union Carbide CEO Warren Anderson showed up in India and was quickly arrested. After making bail, he got the fuck out of town and remained a fugitive from India until his death in 2014. With nowhere else to take them, bodies were dropped on the grounds outside of hospitals. Families waited for news besides rows upon rows of the dead. The staff did their best to make order out of all the chaos. Temporary morgues would eventually be set up to help hold all the bodies being brought in. Long before everyone could be identified and families notified, there was a push to get rid of the bodies as soon as possible. There was a growing fear of disease and further panic in the city. Many of the dead were buried in mass graves, others were thrown onto pyres in mass cremations, which would lead to further grief around the city as families searched for missing loved ones, never knowing what happened to them. Current estimates place the death toll at 22,000 dead as a direct result of the gas leak, with over half a million people suffering from some form of permanent injury from contact with the gas. Most of them would suffer from respiratory ailments the rest of their lives. Pregnant women would give birth to babies born with birth defects the following year. The legal battles would be long and complicated, and the search to hold someone accountable is still ongoing today. They would try and convict eight defendants, including the plant manager, for death by negligence. They were all sentenced to two years and a small fine. All would later be released on bail. The Union Carbide Corporation was ordered to pay out over$470 million to the victims in 1989. Which sounds like a lot, but given the number of people affected, this amounted to about$800 a person. That's$800 for the loss of a loved one. For children growing up born with defects, for an increased chance of getting cancer. The Boepal factory would be allowed to reopen shortly after the leak. It was opened to use up the remaining MICs still held in storage and then shut down again in 1986. Dow Chemicals stepped in and bought out Union Carbide in 2001, further delaying the justice many advocate groups are still seeking 40 years later. And to cap it all off, Union Carbide, apparently not content with just poisoning the air, had to poison the ground too. When they abandoned the Bopel plant, they left behind hundreds of tons of toxic waste, things like mercury, pesticide residues, and other chemicals that never lose their toxicity. Over the years, the waste would leak and be absorbed into the groundwater, which would lead to continuing health problems. Cancer rates in the area would shoot up to where you were hundreds of times more likely to get cancer than anywhere else. Over the next several decades, they would make plans to try to clean the place up and dispose of the waste, but every time they tried, they would face massive protest and drop the whole idea. Which sounds Sounds kinda dumb to me. They're trying to clean shit up, but activists are throwing a fit about it. Most of the people protesting, however, are people and activists living in the area near the disposal site. They are worried the burning of the waste would release ash and other shit that would pollute their own homes. Which I can understand that. Get rid of the garbage, just not here. In 2015, they did a trial run at the proposed disposal unit and destroyed a small amount of waste, which they would later examine the ashes left behind to make sure it wasn't toxic, and to see if they could contain any toxic smoke or if the smoke was even toxic at all. While they would later claim that burning the waste would be safe for the nearby villages, locals would put forward claims that the soil was polluted afterwards and contaminated the groundwater and nearby fresh bodies of water. It would be another 10 years before the plan was finally pushed through. In January 2025, so just a year ago, they removed over 300 tons of toxic waste and transported it to this disposal unit 150 miles away to be burned up. The burning of all the removed waste was estimated to take anywhere from 3 to 9 months, meaning all the waste should have been disposed of by now. I've not been able to find an update, so most likely one hasn't been released, or I just simply can't find it. However, this would be just a small step in a cleanup process that will take decades to complete. A 2010 government study estimated there was over 1 million tons of toxic waste and soil that was contaminated and affecting many other nearby residential areas. So 300 tons gone, only a million more to go. They still got a long way to go to get the entire area cleaned up. And that was the Bopol Gas League of 1984, the world's largest industrial accident, a tragedy that still lives on today in the hearts, minds, and lungs of survivors and the generations that followed. Thanks for listening, and if you liked the show, please consider leaving a rating or review on your app of choice. And you can reach out to the show at historiesadisaster at gmail.com for questions, comments, or suggestions. As well as following the show on social media, like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, whatever. And share the episode. Your friends will love it. While you're at it, pet a penguin, take a walk outside, breathe the fresh air, chase that dream, live for today, because tomorrow is never guaranteed. Thanks and goodbye.