Disasters: The Burned And the Buried

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Nearly three years after that deadly night when a toxic cloud leaked from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, causing history's biggest industrial accident, a new book alleges that the tragedy may have been even more gruesome than assumed. The Indian government has said 2,700 people died at Bhopal. But in A Killing Wind (McGraw-Hill; 297 pages; $19.95), Author Dan Kurzman asserts that the death toll was at least 8,000. He speculates that Indian officials understated the figures in part to "keep the political shock waves under control."

Basing his estimate on interviews and private records, Kurzman writes that in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, 3,000 victims were cremated in conformance with Hindu custom, and 3,000 were buried according to Muslim rites. He also cites accounts that an additional 2,000 victims fled Bhopal and died elsewhere. Similar and even wilder versions of the disaster's toll have previously circulated in India. But compensation claims for deaths caused by the accident remain well below 3,000. Indian officials last week disputed Kurzman's finding. Said one: "The figure we announced was based on solid investigations, and cannot be wrong."