Looking Back: ‘Chernobyl’ & ‘Bhopal’

Barshaneel Bora

The 1980s were a turbulent decade for global industrial safety. Two monumental disasters–the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe and the Bhopal gas leak–shocked the world, revealing systemic flaws in both technology and governance. 

On 26 April 1986, the world witnessed the horror of the Chernobyl disaster at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Soviet Union (modern-day Ukraine), while just two years earlier, on 2 December 1984, the Bhopal Gas Tragedy unfolded in India. 

These incidents, while vastly different in nature–one involving nuclear power and the other, toxic chemicals–share striking similarities in terms of the factors that led to them: government negligence, corporate irresponsibility, and an inadequate response to the immediate crisis.

Both Chernobyl and Bhopal highlight how governments failed to protect their citizens, suppressed critical information, and delayed relief efforts, resulting in devastating human and environmental consequences. Thirty-eight years after Chernobyl and forty years after Bhopal, the effects of these disasters are still felt, with lasting damage to health, ecosystems, and public trust. 

The Soviet Union’s response to the disaster was marred by secrecy, misinformation, and delayed action. In a bid to prevent panic and international scrutiny, Soviet officials delayed evacuations and initially downplayed the scale of the accident.

Residents of the nearby town of Pripyat, home to over forty thousand people, were not informed of the danger until 36 hours after the explosion. This delay in evacuation exposed thousands of people to life-threatening levels of radiation. 

Despite the global outcry and scientific recognition of the scale of the disaster, the Soviet leadership faced little accountability. Even more troubling was the fact that the nuclear industry continued to operate with similar flaws, as the Soviet Union’s reluctance to fully acknowledge the disaster led to insufficient reforms.

Two years before the Chernobyl disaster, on 2 December 1984, the Bhopal Gas Tragedy unfolded in India. The tragedy took place at the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant, where a deadly cloud of methyl isocyanate (MIC), a highly toxic chemical, leaked into the surrounding area. The leak exposed over half a million people to the toxic gas. It led to an immediate death toll in the thousands and long-term health effects for countless others.

The Indian government’s response to the Bhopal disaster was equally inadequate. The government’s failure to enforce industrial safety regulations in the years before the incident allowed the conditions that led to the leak to persist. 

Much like the Soviet Union’s handling of Chernobyl, the Indian government and Union Carbide faced little accountability for their actions. Union Carbide’s parent company, based in the United States, faced minimal legal consequences, and the Indian government’s efforts to hold the company accountable were slow and inefficient. 
In the years that followed, victims of the disaster were left without adequate compensation or justice, a situation that continues to haunt many survivors and their families.

The consequences of the Chernobyl disaster and the Bhopal gas leak are felt even today. 

In Chernobyl, the exclusion zone around the reactor remains largely uninhabitable, and the long-term health impacts of radiation exposure continue to affect survivors and their descendants.

Similarly, in Bhopal, the survivors of the gas leak continue to suffer from respiratory problems, birth defects, and other long-term health issues. The environment around the plant remains contaminated, and many families are still seeking justice.

[Originally published in Madras Courier]

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Frontier
Vol 57, No. 39, March 23 - 29, 2025