Bhopal: 25 years of poison

Indra Sinha, who was Booker-nominated for his book on the Bhopal disaster, explains why the gas leak that killed 20,000 people 25 years ago – and continues to create health problems for countless more – is still a national scandal

Indra Sinha
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 3 December 2009 18.38 GMT

Under the volcano

"Wake up people of Bhopal, you are on the edge of a volcano!"

In September 1982, Bhopali journalist Raj Keswani wrote a terrifying story, the first of a series of articles, for the city's Jansatta daily. Bhopal was about to be annihilated. "It will take just an hour, at most an hour-and-a-half, for every one of us to die."