1984 : Dow Chemical Incompetence And Government Corruption Destroyed Hundreds Of Thousands Of Lives In India

On the night of December 2, 1984, a colourless gas escaped from a tank of Union Carbide’s pesticide plant in Bhopal. The plant was owned by America’s Dow Chemicals (which in 2009 had sales of $45 billion). The gas was methyl isocyanate, and the tank contained 40,000 kilogrammes of it. The gas was supposed to be refrigerated to a temperature of under five degrees, and kept under pressure but the system had broken down. As the gas escaped into the night air it immediately killed 3,000 people in their sleep and estimates suggest that more than another 15,000 were poisoned over a period of time. The numbers of those blinded by the acrid gas, those who suffered abortions and organ failure, and also brain damage is in the hundreds of thousands.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/19767/the-incompetence-in-bhopal/