This post has been corrected.
On Dec. 03, a little past 1 a.m., a Twitter handle began live-tweeting the Bhopal gas disaster, as if the world’s worst industrial accident was playing out in real-time exactly three decades after it actually transpired.
It was a night like this when it happened. Thirty years ago.
— 1984, Bhopal (@1984Bhopal) December 2, 2014
Over the next three hours, another 90 tweets followed, many of them capturing a victim’s experience of the immediate aftermath of the gas leak.
The room is filled with a white cloud. I hear a great noise of people shouting. They are yelling ‘bhaago, bhaago!’
— 1984, Bhopal (@1984Bhopal) December 2, 2014
Mother-in-law comes in. She is also coughing badly. She tells us to come out. I pick up Mohsin, grab Ruby’s hand and go into the kitchen.
— 1984, Bhopal (@1984Bhopal) December 2, 2014
We are feeling worse. Mohsin has stopped groaning. He is unconscious. Mother-in-law says all of us should go to the Hamidia hospital.
— 1984, Bhopal (@1984Bhopal) December 2, 2014
Despite the years gone by, the horror still seems real—with panicking families, vomiting children, women suffering miscarriages and scenes of despair and death. Thousands of victims had inhaled the Methyl Isocyanate gas, which leaked out of the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal.
There’s no accurate data on the number of people who died because of the gas leak. The government has so far paid compensation for a little over 5,000 deaths, though unofficial estimates say that over 25,000 people died as a result of the leak.
The chilling blow-by-blow Twitter accounts were adapted from stories on the website of the Bhopal Medical Appeal.
There are people lying on the ground. They look like they are dead. If we stay here, we will die too. We most go.
— 1984, Bhopal (@1984Bhopal) December 2, 2014
Uphill. Crowded. The three-wheeler is going slowly. I am covered with my own blood and faeces and vomit from my children.
— 1984, Bhopal (@1984Bhopal) December 2, 2014
He gives me clothes to wear, hot water to wash myself. He makes tea, We can’t drink – our throats are on fire.
— 1984, Bhopal (@1984Bhopal) December 2, 2014
The owner of the Twitter handle later clarified that they had not take prior permission from the Bhopal Medical Appeal, and were tweeting to draw attention to the accident and its victims.
Correction: The Twitter handle began live-tweeting a little after 1 a.m., not 3 a.m. as incorrectly reported initially.
This article is a part of Quartz India. For more, follow this link.
30 years later, someone live-tweeted the Bhopal gas disaster—and it’s frightening
No comments:
Post a Comment