Industry's disaster

Eleven years on, the cause of the Bhopal industrial disaster, which killed more than 2000 people, is unresolved. Union Carbide says a saboteur released 40 tons of deadly methyl isocyanate into the air. In Bhopal: The Inside Story by T. R. Chouhan (Apex Press, £11.99/$15, ISBN 0945 257 22 8), the factory’s workers claim water and rust backed up through a valve during company pipe-cleaning, catalysing a runaway reaction in the isocyanate tank. The charge is corporate negligence and cover-up. But who cares?