These blatant safety issues were called for by Union Carbide in an attempt to control losses from the then declining pesticide market. In fact the Indian government had sought to shut down the plant completely because the original city plan only allowed for light industrial use, not hazardous chemical production (more on the reasons why it did not shut down later). But the plant stayed open, and continued to put the safety of the community at risk in order to increase revenue (Shrivastava 41). In 1982 senior UCC officials were actually informed of at least 61 safety hazards at the plant. They obviously ignored the report as they probably knew to begin with as it was their orders to cut costs in safety matters in the first place (Parasuraman 337). It is quite evident that the tragedy began taking shape well before the night of December 3 1984! Nonetheless, that night a tank of MIC became contaminated with nearly a ton of water and chloroform. MIC reacts extremely violently with water, and what occurred was a cataclysmic exothermic reaction. The temperature and pressure inside the tanks rose dramatically. The safety systems, designed to eliminate or at least minimize the discharge, were not working. The refrigeration system was shut down, the scrubber turned off, the flare tower disassembled (Kletz 83). Nearly 20 tons of the MIC gas and sludge bombarded the atmosphere that night. "Lest the neighborhood community be "unduly alarmed", the siren in the factory had been switched off. Poisonous clouds from the Carbide factory enveloped an arc over 20 kilometers before the residents could run away from its deadly embrace" (Parasuraman 337).
While the exact numbers are not confirmed it is estimated that nearly 6,000 people died that night, another 200,000 were injured, and the numbers keep growing as effects are still surfacing today. .
"Many died in their beds, others staggered from their homes, blinded and choking, to die in the street.
