Bhopal disaster (1984): The night of 2–3 December

UCIL, majority-owned by Union Carbide Corporation, made carbamate pesticides at Bhopal. The MIC unit dated from the late 1970s. By 1984 the plant sat beside densely inhabited wards. Safety systems on Tank 610 — refrigeration, scrubbing, flaring — were not in the state the design assumed, according to later Indian investigation and civil discovery.

Water entering the MIC tank is the physical trigger most official reconstructions accept. How the water got there, and how far that question matters beside disabled safeguards, remains a secondary argument. This page does not reconstruct a method. The public fact is an uncontrolled release over sleeping neighbourhoods.

Indian Council of Medical Research studies and independent clinics documented chronic illness in exposed wards. English sources that print a single “20,000 dead” without a date are collapsing advocacy totals with the 1984 municipal count. Responsible reference keeps the night, the decade and the model separate.