India's Night of Death: Bhopal

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By week's end more than 2,500 people were dead in the worst industrial disaster the world has known. At least 1,000 more were expected to die from the fumes in the next two weeks; some 3,000 remained critically ill. In all, 150,000 people were treated at hospitals and clinics in Bhopal and surrounding communities. Most of the dead had succumbed because their lungs had filled with fluid, causing the equivalent of death by drowning. Others had suffered heart attacks. The disaster struck hardest at children and old people, whose lungs were either too small or too weak to withstand the poison. A number of the survivors were permanently blinded, others suffered serious lesions in their nasal and bronchial passages. Doctors also noticed concussions, paralysis and signs of epilepsy, suggesting, they said, the presence of some other chemical-perhaps phosgene, which is used to make methyl isocyanate. Six days after the accident, patients were still arriving at Hamidia Hospital at the rate of one a minute, many of them doubled over with racking coughs, gasping for breath or convulsed with violent spasms that brought a red froth to the lips.

Within hours of the leak, hundreds of victims had lined up at Hamidia Hospital and makeshift clinics, where doctors and nurses worked frantically to ease their misery. As the hospitals filled, patients gathered in the corridors or on the grounds outside; side by side, babies and children thrashed around, unable to breathe. Thousands of animals were also killed by the gas. As the days passed, a sickly stench of decay arose from the bloated carcasses of water buffalo, cattle and dogs that clogged the city's streets. Finally, the army removed them with cranes. But as long as animal and human corpses decomposed in the open air, the threat of contamination increased, and with it the specter of cholera. Meanwhile, rats scurried around the dead bodies, awakening fears of bubonic plague. For days, vultures and wild-eyed pariah dogs roamed through the piles of rotting flesh, feasting.

Rajiv Gandhi, who succeeded his mother Indira as Prime Minister after her assassination in October, broke off his campaigning for the Dec. 24 national elections to visit Bhopal. Expressing his shock and sorrow, Gandhi announced a $4 million relief fund. In addition, Arjun Singh, chief minister of Madhya Pradesh state, of which Bhopal is the capital, promised compensation of about $500 for every family that had suffered a death and $100 for every family that had a member hospitalized. President Reagan sent Gandhi a note expressing the grief shared by him and the American people.