Bhopal: ‘Live-tweeting’ horrors of worst-ever disaster

Whatever happened on the intervening night of December 2 and 3, 1984 may or may not be well known to the current generation, but on the 30th anniversary of the tragedy, somebody gave a “live” account of the fateful night.

Whatever happened on the intervening night of December 2 and 3, 1984 after the methyl isocyanate leak in Bhopal may or may not be well known to the current generation, but on the 30th anniversary of the tragedy, somebody from the Twitterati gave a “live” account of that fateful night.

Past 1am, on Tuesday night, a Twitter handle started “live-tweeting” the Bhopal disaster as it unfolded 30 years ago.

The Twitter handle started with the tweet: “At about 12.30 am I woke to the sound of Ruby coughing badly. The room was not dark, there was a street light nearby.” The tweets about the disaster, written as a first person account, continued for over 2 hours.

His or her scores of tweets gave a graphic description of that night when gas leak caught people unawares. As the tweets continue, you can feel the scale of destruction. “We are all coughing, groaning. We close the doors and windows to stop more gas from coming in but the room is already full of white clouds,” says one of the tweets.

Owner of the Twitter handle, however, clarifies said the “live” tweets were adapted from the stories at “http://bhopal.org/what-happened” without prior permission. The person tweeting about the tragedy also pointed out in one tweet, “This handle, this set of tweets, were nothing, a device, an attempt to get your attention. To get you into the fight...”

Tweets were retweeted and drew the attention of many in twitterspace 1984, Bhopal @1984Bhopal: It was a night like this when it happened. Thirty years ago.