The Union Carbide Gas Leak | A Short Documentary | Fascinating Horror

"On 2nd of December, 1984, a cloud of toxic gas leaked from The Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India..."

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SOCIAL MEDIA:

CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Intro
00:38 - Background
03:46 - The Union Carbide Gas Leak
08:29 - The Aftermath

MUSIC:
► "Glass Pond" by Public Memory

SOURCES:

​​​​​​​#Documentary​​​​ #History​​​​​​​​​ #TrueStories​

[gregoryschreiter]

Ah yes, "the external alarm was quickly shut off so as to not create a panic." Wouldn't want people panicking and, you know, running for their lives or anything... this is probably the worst disaster on the channel yet.

[boojingleful]

I think this is the most horrific one you've covered yet. The negligence and indifference continuing to this day, the sheer lack of consequences or lessons taken forward, the massive human impact, and then the fact that it's still not even been cleaned up, absolutely staggering.

[WolfRaven]

"It's potentially deadly, and people already have symptoms of poisoning, but we'll fix it after our tea break." Mind-boggling.

[maxherman]

Props for calling it the "Union Carbide gas leak" and not the "Bhopal disaster". It's always good to see people point out who's really at fault.

[Car_guy]

Thanks for highlighting the pain of my state and state capital. No accountability has been taken, and they still are planning to burn the STILL EXISTING TOXIC WASTE (From 1984, in 2025) in Madhya Pradesh itself. It's a woe for us.

[chriswilkinson]

I just can't get my head around the fact that they switched the emergency alarm off because they didn't want to panic people.Who the hell thought that was a good idea?

[ethribin]

The fact the facility has not been cleaned up is the most mind bogling part to me.
How can you leave an activ toxic leak for nearly 50 years aside a city with millions of people, and not clean it up?
This is the worst part of all of it.

And, as a Fascinating Horror veteran myself, the fact that a conclusion or lesson section is missing from this episode just puts more weight on the fact that this toxic leak has not been cleaned up at all.

This is so mind bogling to me I cant feel anger properly due to the shock of no cleanup being done.

Just...
I dont know...

[durgadivinewrath]

I'm from an Indian family, and had heard of this disaster, but until now I hadn't known the extent of the negligence involved, or how far reaching the effects on both the people and the environment. Thank you for this. Its too easy for people to forget . I'm glad you are teaching about the events those in power are too ready to brush under the rug.

[sketchyskies]

"In order to keep the plant in operation, budget cuts were made across the board, including a sharp reduction in routine maintenance and safety training." Well, I can't imagine how this disaster might have happened then.

[nightowldickson]

in my opinion this event was one of the few tragedies on an unimaginable scale that made it truly horrific, not to mention it occurred at night when most people were asleep and had little warning or chance of escape.

[JosiahGould]

The Bhopal disaster was one of the first industrial accidents I can remember reading about. Even at a young age it made me upset and angry that practically nothing has been done to punish those responsible. Safety of people, both workers and public, has been a large part of my ethos over the years and I have reported many unsafe things and left jobs over them. People over profits.

[bobblebardsley]

It's always reassuring when lessons are learned and steps are taken to make things righ- oh.

[custardavenger]

Many people live near industrial plants and have no idea that inside that plant is a map. The map shows the area affected if it all goes wrong and is used to calculate the insurance cost of a disaster. I have worked at many plants that have this but luckily they were all well managed and the risk was taken seriously.

[yahargulian]

Indra Sinha's novel Animal's People is set within the aftermath of this disaster and directly talks about the effect it had - and continues to have - on the people of Bhopal. It's a very, very good read and I'd 100% recommend it to anyone interested.

Sinha himself has been involved in the campaign for justice for the victims of the disaster and has written extensively on the subject outside of the novel, also.

[adrielsebastian]

I'd love to see a Chernobyl-style docudrama about Bhopal. It's incredible how the largest non-nuclear industrial disaster in history remains unknown to too many people.

[bakomusha]

Easily the worst disaster you've covered by far. No lessens learned, no closure, nothing that makes one of your videos so special, and it hurts! The wasn't negligence that was active malicious intent! A video without your coda makes me very angry at the whole situation!

[katfromthekong]

The Indian government had a 25% stake in the company. The reason they didn't do anything about the non-existent safety standards was not a concern about lost jobs for the population, but rather a concern about lost revenue for themselves. This case is just a sad example of greed in action.

[NucleaRaptor]

Everyone always brings up Chernobyl as the worst technogenic catastrophe, but the Bhopal disaster, while objectively worse by every conceivable metric, is not being talked about nearly as much.

[pranayp]

Thank you for covering this. I am from Bhopal. When I used to live there I used to pass through UC area very frequently. When I was in college we used to visit the families who lived nearby when the disaster happened. They narrated what they saw, how they felt. They told us about local heroes who saved many lives but couldn't save their own. How entire platforms of railway stations were filled with dead people who looked like they were just sleeping. Children till this day are born with birth defects.
Also the death count of 3, 800 I personally believe is very low. It exceeds 15, 000 in my opinion in the immediate aftermath.

[ProjectDarkWolf]

6:00 That fact that the external alarm was turned off to avoid alarming residents is both tragic and ironic, but I've experienced the same red tape. Last year I was involved in an accident at work and was left with my hand trapped and partly crushed for almost an hour. During a 999 (British 911) call, the operator asked a colleague of mine: "Is his condition deteriorating?" My colleague replied that yes, I was starting to lose feeling in my arm. The operator then replied, "Okay, we'll tell the fire crew to turn their lights on. We try not to use them because it distracts other road users."