Of a memory that will never fade

Many memories fade over time, but some remain as sharp and sore as ever. For me, one such memory turned 40 years on December 3, 2024. The day remains unforgettable in my life.

In the chilly intervening night of December 2 and 3, 1984, a deadly gas engulfed the central Indian city of Bhopal. Newspaper offices received “top priority” flashes about the “accident” followed by bulletins indicating that some “fatal” gas had leaked in the city. But soon it became apparent that the accident was much bigger than it initially appeared to be.

By about 6 am, there was confirmation that a disaster had struck Bhopal. People were dropping dead like flies! The death toll could be thousands!

Tonnes of methyl isocyanate used in the production of pesticides from the Union Carbide plant swept through the city of over two million people after one of the tanks storing the deadly chemical reportedly shattered its concrete casing.

I was then a trainee journalist at a newspaper in Indore nearly 200 km away from Bhopal. The editor of the newspaper convened an emergency meeting of all the staff and formed a team to rush to Bhopal.

Though I was too young to report on a calamity of this magnitude, the editor conceded to my request and allowed me to proceed to the fated city.

But let me admit the fact that initially I did not realise the intensity of the disaster. I happily complied with my editor’s order, as I found it an opportunity to amass spot reporting experience of a calamity and also meet my cousin, who was living in Bhopal.

Alas! We never thought that we would be arriving in a city reminiscent of the infamous Chernobyl nuclear meltdown. We were horrified to hear about the rising toll of human loss.

We found dead bodies still lying on the ground at many places. They were slowly being picked up and loaded aboard a waiting truck. We found carcasses of hundreds of cattle and animals all over the streets.

The killer gas spread through the city, sending residents scurrying through the dark streets. No alarm ever sounded a warning, and no evacuation plan was prepared. When victims arrived at hospitals breathless and blind, doctors did not know how to treat them.

We drove to the government-owned Hamidia Hospital only to see a sight that was something straight out of Dante's Inferno. Dead bodies were piled on the hospital's pathways, and hundreds of men, women and children were found lying on the beds and in the corridors. Their eyeballs were swollen, red and bursting, and every breath brought agony to their burning lungs.

Many others were wailing, screaming and searching for the bodies of their loved ones. Thousands more poured in within hours. Most of them were the city’s poor, living in the sprawling settlements.

After interacting with the doctors on duty, we realised that none of them knew how to treat the victims because they had never faced a situation like this. The staff at the hospital was not able to attend to the innumerable people arriving in the hospital.

As we were talking to the survivors, we were told of rumours spreading that a second wave of poisonous gas, even deadlier than the first one, had broken loose, and the new exodus further swelled the rush of panic-stricken residents. The panic was indescribable!

Four years later, in 1988, when I shifted my residence from Indore to Bhopal to join another newspaper in the ill-fated city, the air was still heavy with stories of loss and resilience.

Again, when I revisited the city in 2018, I still found the scars of that apocalyptic night everywhere, etched into the faces of the survivors and the walls of their homes. Now even after four decades, I believe the wounds of the city have not healed.

The tragedy reminds us of the fact that small, silent disasters are still unfolding in thousands of communities all over the world, especially in the Third World, where minimal safety and environmental regulations attract polluting industries.

The generation today may not even be aware of the ghastly scene, nor do they know the plight of the survivors of this "man-made" disaster. The fact is that it has changed the lives of thousands and even shaped the political and cultural history of a city that was central to India.