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Quick answers
What leaked at Bhopal?
Methyl isocyanate from a storage tank at the UCIL pesticide plant on the night of 2–3 December 1984. The page does not discuss how to handle or release the chemical. The public fact is an uncontrolled urban exposure.
How many people died?
The official immediate death toll often cited is 2,259. Indian government statements later used about 3,500 deaths in the first days and more than 15,000 gas-related deaths over the following years. Campaign estimates run higher. All of these are dated published figures, not a single census.
What was the 1989 settlement?
UCC paid US$470 million to the Union of India under Supreme Court orders of 14–15 February 1989 to resolve civil claims. Criminal proceedings were first quashed and later revived. Distribution of the money to claimants took years and remains criticised.
Who was convicted?
On 7 June 2010 a Bhopal court convicted seven former UCIL officials, including chairman Keshub Mahindra, and the Indian company of causing death by negligence (IPC 304A) and related counts. Sentences were two years and fines. An eighth accused had died. Warren Anderson was not in the dock.
Why is the status “mixed”?
Civil claims were settled; criminal law produced only negligence convictions of Indian employees; the American parent executive was never tried in India; the factory site’s contamination file is not closed. Those outcomes do not add to a single word like convicted or closed.
What Indian laws followed?
The 1985 claims-processing Act, the Environment (Protection) Act 1986 and the Public Liability Insurance Act 1991. Together they centralised claimant representation, environmental rule-making and no-fault industrial insurance.
Investigation began as disaster response and became a two-country docket.
The CBI’s 1987 charges and the 2010 trial are the Indian criminal spine. The United States suits are the forum spine.
Agencies
- Central Bureau of Investigation — Indian criminal investigation; 1987 charges against Indian accused and Anderson.
- Supreme Court of India — 1989 settlement, later revival of criminal cases, 1996 charge reduction.
- United States federal courts — Early mass-tort filings dismissed on forum non conveniens, sending the civil case to India.
- Madhya Pradesh and municipal authorities — Immediate body counts, relief camps and later health statistics that still define the scale argument.
What followed
- Contain and count
3 December 1984 was hospitals, mortuaries and a plant lock-down, not a leisurely forensic scene.
- Sue in the United States
Claimant lawyers filed where UCC sat. Forum doctrine sent the mass civil case back to India.
- Nationalise the claim
The 1985 Act made the Union the only settlor, for better coordination and for worse voice.
- Settle in 1989
US$470 million ended the main civil docket and briefly ended the criminal one.
- Revive and reduce
Criminal cases returned; 1996 cut the charge to negligence.
- Convict in 2010
A Bhopal trial court entered two-year sentences against Indian UCIL officials still alive to hear them.
Turning points
- Forum non conveniens — United States dismissal made India the only civil forum that mattered.
- 14 February 1989 — The settlement number became the global headline and the families’ grievance.
- 7 June 2010 — Criminal law finally spoke, and spoke softly.
The investigation lasted long enough for an executive to die untried and for employees to be convicted as old men.
Public-record encyclopedia. Not legal advice. Not a how-to. Graphic detail is withheld. Wars belong in a separate atlas.