The toxic gas leak from the now-defunct Union Carbide factory on the chilly night of December 2 not only killed thousands of people in Bhopal but continues to give nightmares to the survivors 39 years since the tragedy. At least 3,787 people were killed and more than five lakh were affected physically after a toxic gas leaked from the pesticide factory on the intervening night of December 2 and 3, 1984.

“I shudder in fear and tremble on December 2 nights. I saw people collapsing dead on that chilly night,” Mahendrajeet Singh, 79, a gas victim and retired chief reservation superintendent of railways, told the media on Saturday. Recalling the fateful night, Singh said, “My family was asleep around 2 am when shouts and cries of people in the railway colony some distance from the Union Carbide factory woke us up. We ran out of the house and fled on a scooter and on foot to escape the gas emanating from the killer factory.”