Rashid Khan, 60, remembers the cold winter night of December 2, 1984, vividly. Sitting around a fire with four friends, his eyes started to burn. People began to shout, “Gas nikal gayi he (the gas has leaked).”
Outside his current house in Devaki Nagar, about one km from the chemical company Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) factory premises, Mr. Khan is now worried about another threat: the groundwater that he and the people in the densely populated area around use. “I still get dizzy every two or three days, and it lasts for two to three minutes. I sweat and get anxious,” Mr. Khan said.
