audio, stills, text and or video: Go to zReportage.com to see more - On the night of December 2, 1984 a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India leaked methyl isocyanate gas and other chemicals creating a dense toxic cloud over the region and killing more than 8,000 people in just the first few days. The victims died in agony, choking, blinded by gas that burned their eyes and seared their lungs. Upwards of an estimated 100,000 people are still chronically ill from the injuries suffered on that night. The death toll has reached more than 25,000. Today in Bhopal children are being born dead and malformed in numbers not seen since the spate of horrific births that followed the gas catastrophe 30 years ago. After the catastrophic gas leak, the Union Carbide factory was locked up and left to rot, with all the chemicals and wastes still there. Thousands of tons of pesticides, solvents, chemical catalysts and by-products lay strewn across 16 acres inside the site. Huge 'evaporation ponds' covering an area of 35 acres outside the factory received thousands of gallons of virulent liquid wastes. As each year's monsoon battered the decaying plant and rain overflowed the huge 'ponds', the toxins continue to seep down through the sandy soil, into the water table. These people remain unofficial victims, denied compensation or medical help. Studies show a health crisis now effecting a new generation of Bhopal's children.
© Bernat Parera/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press

Nov. 17, 2014 - Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India - MOHAMMED YAQUB shows his old badge that certified him as a worker of Union Carbide. On Dec. 3, 1984, around 40 tons of methyl isocyanate gas accidentally leaked from a pesticide factory owned by U.S. multinational Union Carbide Corp. and was carried by the wind into the surrounding slums.
© Bernat Parera/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press

Nov. 17, 2014 - Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India - One of the reactors where methyl isocyanate gas was mixed to produce Sevin, the pesticide that Union Carbide sold to the world. On Dec. 3, 1984, around 40 tons of methyl isocyanate gas accidentally leaked from a pesticide factory owned by U.S. multinational Union Carbide Corp. The government recorded 5,295 deaths.
© Bernat Parera/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press

Nov. 17, 2014 - Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India - Pictures taken by Legal Medicine Insitute photographer Subasho Godane after the accident to help families identify their deceased. Many families had all of their members die, so there was not anyone left to identify the corpses. Activists estimate 25,000 deaths from illnesses since the leak.
© Bernat Parera/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press

Nov. 17, 2014 - Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India - The Union Carbide plant, which was inaugurated the 4th of May of 1980, is photographed 34 years later. Three decades after the worst industrial disaster, toxic waste from Union's Carbide factory is still poisoning the grounds of Bhopal.
© Bernat Parera/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press

Cerebral palsy, deformities, autism and deafness since the accident.
© Bernat Parera/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press

Nov. 17, 2014 - Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India - An abandoned lab of the factory where some chemical bottles used to be stored.
© Bernat Parera/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press

Nov. 17, 2014 - Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India - ZAFAR can barely walk and suffers chronic pain. He survived the accident in 1984 and receives treatment at the Sambhavna Trust Clinic.
© Bernat Parera/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press

Nov. 17, 2014 - Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India - A painting on the wall of the legal medicine institute of Bhopal explains how the disaster took place.
© Bernat Parera/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press

Nov. 17, 2014 - Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India - A child sits in the garden of the Chingari Trust. Children from Bhopal suffer from many diseases and deformities.
© Bernat Parera/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press

Nov. 17, 2014 - Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India - In the bowels of Tank 610, approximately 42 tons of methyl isocyanate gas leaked and caused the accident that killed thousands of Bhopal's inhabitants.
© Bernat Parera/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press

Nov. 17, 2014 - Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India - Children, who are deaf, play basketball together. SUTI shoots the ball into the basket.
© Bernat Parera/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press

JP Bustee, Chola Bustee and Orya Bustee. The people from the slums were the first to die from the toxic gas. In the picture, the roofs of Jai Prakash Bustee.
© Bernat Parera/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press

Nov. 17, 2014 - Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India - PRACHI can only walk with the help of her mother. She has never learned to speak. She wears a globe on her left hand to avoid bitting it. She is one of the many children who were born with severe diseases after the accident.
© Bernat Parera/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press

Nov. 17, 2014 - Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India - A man walks over the train tracks in Chola Bustee.
© Bernat Parera/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press

Nov. 17, 2014 - Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India - Two inhabitants of Chola Bustee cook under a highway bridge.
© Bernat Parera/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press

Nov. 17, 2014 - Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India - Vapor is used to treat Zafar from his chronic pain. He's being treated at the Sambhavna Trust Clinic.
© Bernat Parera/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press

Nov. 17, 2014 - Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India - One of the children from the Chingari Trust plays in the garden.
© Bernat Parera/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press

Nov. 17, 2014 - Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India - The instruments that controlled the levels of methyl isocyanate gas in the plant with a sticker below that states 'Safety is everybody's businesss.'
© Bernat Parera/zReportage.com/ZUMA Press