25 must read books - XVIII

Five past midnight in Bhopal

December 3, 1984. Bhopal.

Unprecedented disaster struck this city in Central India leaving between 16000 to 30000 people dead and half a million permanently harmed.

It was a normal winter night. The city had gone to sleep. Just after midnight a cyanide cloud drifted over the streets of Bhopal, set loose by a leak in a nearby chemical 

The  industrial conglomerate, Union Carbide, had invented a "miracle" insecticide in their laboratory in New York.  They had come to build its vast chemical complex at Bhopal, one meant to be a glory of technology and, ironically, to save thousands of lives brought low by insect-wrought starvation. 

At five past midnight, on December 3, 1984, toxic gas leaked out of a pesticide tank. Within the next couple of hours, the sreets of Bhopal started to fill with the toxic gas. The mayhem began.

This book is essentially a book not on technicalities but on the humane angle of the disaster. 

A result of over three years of research and innumerable interviews, this book will touch your heart. 

Dominique Lapierre and the Spanish author, Javier Moro, have crafted an excellent book. A must read.


Namaste


Prabir