25 years ago, the Apocalypse Now
The morning of December 3, 1984... the ticker was flashing the Bhopal gas leak story. The toll was low. By noon, it was clear the disaster was much bigger than anything one would ever see. I had to get to Bhopal fast.
I finally caught the early morning flight the next day and landed in a city that looked like a scene from Apocalypse Now. The dying and the blind lined the streets. The first shots were of people gathered against the grim backdrop of the now sealed off plant . Frightened, bewildered, they were piling on to every available transport and heading for the old part of Bhopal, to Hamidia Hospital where the full scale of the tragedy was unfolding - the horrifying effects of exposure to the deadly methly isocynate gas which had leaked from Union Carbide plant. People were dying like flies, mothers rushing in, babies unable to open their eyes. The heartbreak, as one watched, helpless, as they went blind right before one’s eyes. Through the day one could neither eat nor drink anything. Everything was contaminated.
The dead began piling up. Twisted, contorted, on the streets, at the doorsteps of their homes, in hospitals where doctors were clearly unable to cope. It was a day one was never going to forget nor the week that followed. Soon, the world’s biggest industrial disaster would be displaced by the next story- elections, riots.
But that December morning will always be the day that one went to hell and back.
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