Information as a Policy Tool: The Toxics Release Inventory

On December 2, 1984, late at night, a runaway chemical reaction at a Union Carbide pesticide-manufacturing plant caused a tank to rupture, releasing a cloud of toxic gases and aerosols into the air around Bhopal, India. The poisonous cloud spread through the area, quickly killing several thousand people who lived in the shantytowns surrounding the plant. Thousands more died of exposure-related injuries in the weeks, months, and years that followed.