In December 1984, a gas leak of approximately forty metric tons of methyl isocyanate (MIC) from a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, resulted in as many as 3,000 deaths and injuries to thousands. MIC, an organic chemical used in the production of pesticides, is a volatile liquid that reacts violently with water. MIC is highly toxic to humans and short-term exposure can cause respiratory diseases, if not death, and can seriously affect reproduction. The circumstances and results of what was the industrial accident with the largest death toll in history has been widely used as a case study in engineering design and technology management.

Union Carbide of India, Limited (UCIL), a company controlled by U. S.-based Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), operated the Bhopal plant. UCC provided the basic plant design, supervised its engineering, and defined its operating procedures. Prior to the catastrophe, the plant had been losing...