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What occurred shortly after midnight in Bhopal, India on December 3, 1984 is considered the worst industrial disaster ever. A Chernobyl level environmental catastrophe that is still being felt and fought over four decades later. But even as the victims continue to struggle with the after effects, Union Carbide, the company at the center of the accident, has escaped accountability. Rather than pay for the damage they've spent the years since focused on something shifting blame. It's unfortunately pretty typical corporate behavior. But what makes the story of Bhopal stand out is both the scale of the tragedy and and a maddening absence of accountability. Even as the evidence against the perpetrators piled up, the questions that do remain are whether the victims will ever know justice. And if we have learned enough to stop it from ever happening again. In September of 1982, Indian journalist Rajkumar Keswani was finishing an investigative series for a popular weekly paper. After nearly a year of research, he finally published the first piece. It was titled Please Save the City. The subject, a pesticide factory in northern Bhopal owned by an American chemicals company called Union Carbide.

B (5:56)

They had a great reputation in this city because it was the only multinational operating over here.

A (6:03)

That's Rajkumar speaking years later on an Indian television network.

B (6:08)

There was very little scope for anyone to doubt about Union Carbide and its activities.

A (6:15)

Rumors about the plant and its dangerous work environment had spread ever since it was built in 1969. But in recent years, those problems had gone public. In 1978, there was a fire at the factory. Rajkumar remembers the dense neighboring residential area filling with thick black smoke.

B (6:35)

I was one of those in the crowd. It was smelling so bad. The sky was completely covered by black clouds. And it took several hours to control that fire. For a few days people would talk about it, then forget.

A (6:54)

Then three years later, in 1981, a worker inhaled phosgene gas and choked to death. Phosgene is used in plastics and pesticides. But it's also so poisonous that it was originally used as a chemical weapon in World War I. When Rajkumar heard the news, he was crushed. The worker happened to be his friend.

B (7:15)

That was the alarm from where I started working on this because I thought I should not take it so lightly and I should look into this. It was pretty tough for me because I had absolutely no science background and I won't understand any kind of chemicals and its character.

A (7:38)

Rajkumar spent the next nine months digging into Union Carbide. He studied chemistry textbooks to understand the science behind the pesticides. He interviewed former and current employees about the factory's mechanics and its work culture. Rajkumar's dossier grew and the portrait it painted of Union Carbide was alarming. Maintenance was routinely delayed or ignored. Safety was considered a secondary concern. Instruction manuals were printed in English and not easily read by many of the workers. Making matters worse, sales of Union Carbide's signature pesticide product had dropped. The company responded with cutbacks. Now the factory was being run by a smaller crew who were underpaid and under trained. Despite these bombshells, Rajkumar's first article was no match for larger forces taking place in Bhopal at the time. In the decade prior, the city's population had exploded, growing three times faster than the rest of India's. Shanty towns sprouted across the city, two of them directly across the street from the pesticide plant. The local government was under pressure to keep up and industrialize. So burdening the plant with safety and pollution controls simply wasn't worth the potential job losses. But Rajkumar didn't quit. He kept publishing articles and warning his city.

B (9:05)

By then I was completely convinced that it is because the way the factory was being run, I had seen from the inside all the safety norms were being bypassed just to save money. And even the pipelines were not in a good shape. So that was very dangerous.

A (9:26)

In another article, he details Union Carbide's stockpile of a chemical called methyl isocyanate, or mic. It is one of the most toxic substances on the planet. It's also one of the most volatile. MIC is stored in liquid form, but if it mixes with even a drop of water, it triggers a runaway reaction that causes a rapid increase in heat and the release of the deadly gas into the air. MIC is a dangerous ingredient in even the smallest quantity.

B (10:00)

After going all through this, one thing which stuck with me was a very basic fact that the phosgene and MIC were heavier than the air.

A (10:12)

And since MIC was heavier than air, if it were to ever escape, it would drop and linger near the ground. And Union Carbide was sitting on more than 40 tons of it. Rajkumar would later publish information gleaned from a confidential internal safety audit conducted in the wake of his friend's death. It identified multiple safety violations at the factory. It also raised the issue of an excessive amount of employee turnover. Taken together, the site was ruled to be an unstable work environment. Subsequent reports from Union Carbide officials claimed that the safety issues cited in the audit had been resolved but little improved. In 1982 alone, there were at least three separate gas leaks at the factory. Dozens of workers suffered injuries and I.

B (11:02)

Was getting angry with myself at my failure that I'm unable to convince the people.

A (11:09)

Then In June of 1984, Rajkumar Keswani published an explosive piece that appeared in one of India's biggest newspapers.

B (11:18)

I wrote another article with a little more alarming and I would call it a little sensational headline. Bhopal Sitting at the top of a volcano the city population could be turned to dead bodies within one and a half hours.

A (11:37)

The city was on top of a volcano. Metaphorically speaking, it would take only six more months for it to erupt.

C (11:49)

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The venturex Business Card what's in your wallet? Terms and conditions apply. Find out more capitalone.com venturexbusiness. It all started on the evening of December 2, 1984, when a worker at the Union Carbide plant turned on a hose and began spraying water down a large steel pipe. He'd been advised to do so by an inexperienced supervisor, but flushing the pipes this way was against protocol. The worker then went to check the drain valves where the water should have been coming out. It wasn't flowing from one of them. He assumed the pipe was too blocked by debris. The worker told his supervisor about it, who told him to keep the hose running because the clog would eventually clear itself. The worker left the water pumping and went off shift. Later, some factory workers smell something faint but distinctive. The odor of boiled cabbage. The odor of mic, the dangerous chemical that Rajkumar Keswani had warned about. Then their eyes begin to water. It was a rudimentary but effective way to detect leaks. The workers notify their supervisor, warning this time that the smell is stronger than usual. But this happens all the time, and it's almost time for a tea break, so the supervisor says they'll deal with it. After minutes, after the crew downs their last sips of tea, a worker stares in disbelief at the pressure gauge on a storage tank holding mic. Pressure is rising, and inside the refrigerated tank, the Temperature jumps to 77 degrees. Fahrenheit the highest reading on the scale. These employees didn't know it yet, but the pipes they'd hosed down were improperly sealed, and the water had made contact with the mic just inches away from the stunned workers. Under the thick stainless steel walls of the tank, a violent reaction had begun. As the concrete above the tanks vibrates and cracks, workers hear something boiling like a cauldron. Then, in a panic, they run out of the factory and into the streets of Bhopal. A few hours later, in a poor neighborhood near the plant, a group of older ladies buzzes around a young Bhopali woman named Padmini, adorning her in a red sari with gold embroidery, a simple cotton veil, and red paint for her toes, ankles, and wrists. Tonight, Padmini is getting married. Scores of relatives had gathered for the wedding, and after dinner, as the night deepened, it was time to dance. Padmini ties bells to her ankles and begins performing a traditional dance for the guests. The party claps and cheers and raises their glasses. A few minutes into the dance, wedding guests notice another sound behind the the loud wailing of a siren. Eventually, the siren can no longer be ignored and the dancing stops. But 10 minutes later, the siren ends as abruptly as it began and the dancing resumes. Sometime after 1am with the festivities still ongoing, a few wedding guests notice an odd smell wafting on the cool night breeze, something sharp and pungent. Suddenly, the wedding party is interrupted yet again, this time by five cows and a bull stumbling through the tables toward the dance floor. The animals wobble and lurch, knocking over glasses and plates. Padmini sees the cow's eyes bulging. Then they start vomiting a yellow froth, and seconds later, they collapse. Across town, the journalist Rajkumar Keswani is at home in his apartment, winding down for bed, when a smell perks his attention. He goes to the window and leans out. The smell is stronger outside, sharp and unnatural. Something doesn't seem right, so Rajkumar shuts the window and calls the police. The police had been notified about some sort of gas accident at the Union Carbide factory. But they didn't have many details yet. Given his previous reporting, Rajkumar has a bad feeling, so he acts quickly. Rajkumar packs a bag, rushes with his wife and her younger sister to their scooter, and once all three are squeezed onto the seat, Rajkumar races toward the highway out of town. He doesn't have a destination in mind. He just knows they need to get out of Bhopal as fast as they can. Others had the same idea. Motorbikes and tuk tuks swerve around cars and crowds swarming the streets. People are gasping for air and rubbing their eyes with rags. Nobody can breathe. Nobody knows what's happening. Rajkumar holds his breath, squints and speeds as fast as the scooter can go. Another journalist would later describe what he saw unfolding on the streets of Bhopal that night.

B (19:13)

People were running out of their homes without even bothering to pick their children as they ran. And people were falling by the wayside. They were falling by the sidewalks. They were falling one on the other.

A (19:31)

Around the same time that Padmini's wedding is being invaded by sick animals, a train engineer named Gulan Dastagir is finishing paperwork at the Bhopal railway station. He steps onto the platform and is immediately struck by a chemical stench like ammonia that burns his eyes and throat. That's when he notices a panicked crowd filling the station. Ghulam doesn't know what's happened, but his emergency instincts kick in. Ghulam quickly radios the conductor of a train on the tracks about to depart and tells him to wait. Since it's early, there are lots of empty seats and the crowd swarming the station is desperate to escape. Ghulam orders the doors open and waves people toward the train until all the compartments are filled. Then he clears it for departure. As the train rumbles out of Bhopal, Ghulam hurries to his office and grabs the phone. He goes down a list, calling the manager of every adjacent station. He tries to hide the panic in his voice, but his message is urgent. Bhopal is a biohazard. Don't send passengers into the city, only emergency help. Not every passenger had heeded the warnings to get off inbound trains headed to Bhopal. The PhD student Satanath Sarangi, who had heard a vague report about the accident on the radio, was finally pulling into view of the station. That's when he caught his first glimpse of what he and other rescue workers were up against.

B (21:01)

There were people in large groups, sometimes small groups, and all in just a lot of pain and huddled together. Many groaning, crying, all eyes puffed up, eyes swollen, breathing, breathing with difficulty.

A (21:24)

The city was in chaos and it was only beginning.

B (21:41)

The enormity of the tragedy of Bhopal.

A (21:43)

India is becoming more apparent this morning. The scenes are simply hellish. At one point, an official said one death was being recorded every minute from the poison gas leak in the city of Bhopal.

B (21:53)

It is too early to call these people survivors.

A (21:56)

Some will die within six weeks as.

B (21:58)

Their livers, kidneys, and lungs deteriorate.

A (22:02)

Satanath's first 24 hours in Bhopal felt like one long downward spiral. Everywhere he turned, there were more people hurting who couldn't be helped. It was a losing battle against an invisible enemy.

B (22:16)

The experience that they went through that night, the first thing that came to their mind was that the people who died were luckier than those who survived.

A (22:28)

The idyllic Bhopal of Satanath's memories was gone, extinguished by a deadly cloud of some 40 tons of methyl isocyanate, or MIC, released from one of Union Carbide's tanks after making contact with water. At least 3,800 people were killed in the immediate aftermath, largely in the poor neighborhoods next to the plant where Padmini's wedding had taken place. Human corpses lined the streets and alleys between huts where they'd collapsed in the middle of desperate attempts to escape. Tens of thousands of others suffered serious side effects, such as blindness and sterility. Cafes and businesses were shuttered. Parks were empty. Entire apartment blocks had been abandoned. Nearly everyone had fled. Most of those who hadn't had died.

B (23:23)

There were these pictures of helplessness. Men, women, children, or just lying flat on the ground.

A (23:33)

The only hubs of activity were shelters and hospitals. Mobs of people gathered outside, waiting to get in. Everywhere Satanath went was the a sea of victims with no idea what was happening to their bodies.

B (23:49)

Most people complained was burning from inside. So as they inhale this gas, it is so pungent and it produces heat when it finds water. So because as they inhaled, their lungs got filled with water because their body oozed that water to dilute the pungent gas, and that led to their drowning in their own body fluids.

A (24:19)

Doctors rushed to Bhopal from around the country, but few of them had heard of MIC before, much less treated it. So doctors improvised, focusing on immediate symptoms. They used water and saline to soothe their patients burning eyes, administered inhalers to those who were suffocating, and gave aspirin and muscle relaxants to ease the debilitating pain. But their methods were futile against a poison as potent as mic.

B (24:48)

The children are dying in front of me and I can't do anything, anything much regarding. Whatever we are doing here is just symptomatic. We are just trying to reduce the toil of it, but we can't help it.

A (25:03)

In one of those hospital beds was Padmini, the young woman whose wedding was interrupted by the disaster. A guest at her wedding had found Padmini collapsed in a nearby field and and rushed her to the hospital. When she regained consciousness. She had no memory of what had happened to her or where her family was, or how lucky she was to be alive. Several hours after the leak, the gas had dissipated enough that aid groups and journalists were able to enter the city and begin taking stock of what had happened. It was a nearly impossible task. Dead animals litter Bhopal, raising the chance of disease.

B (25:44)

No one knows whether the food is contaminated.

A (25:49)

Water is trucked in from other towns. Families had been separated in the chaos and couldn't find each other. But the first task was processing the dead. This was a tricky job in Bhopal because of its population's different religious customs. The Muslim dead had to be buried, but the cemeteries filled up quickly. To make more room, a fatwa was issued, allowing old graves to be dug up and extra bodies piled inside.

B (26:19)

I remember meeting a guy and this person showed me his hands. He had been digging graves for three days and three nights. He didn't speak, he didn't say much. He just showed me his hands and full of blisters. And his eyes were swollen from the gas, but also maybe from crying. I don't know. Graves were not for a single person. These were mass graves, bodies dumped together.

A (26:51)

MIC was so toxic it posed another risk. The gas soaked into clothes and hair and skin and could be a danger to anyone treating or handling those who had been infected, living or dead.

B (27:03)

I have heard that the doctor who was carrying out the autopsy, he suffered major lung injuries because of the gas that he inhaled coming out from the lungs of the dead.

A (27:17)

Inquiries were made to Union Carbide for information and assistance in treating the effects of mic. But the company downplayed its danger. They told doctors it was tear gas, only a little stronger. Union Carbide was lying. MIC was nothing like tear gas. But the company wasn't dumb. They could see corpses burning 247 throughout the city. And within just the first three days, the death toll in Bhopal was estimated to be at least 7,000. They knew soon there would have to be a reckoning.

C (28:00)

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A (28:32)

Okay, Kerry, you Ready? Quick, quick, quick. List three gifts you'd never give. A cowboy, lacy bobby socks, a diamond bracelet, and a gift certificate to Sephora. Oh, my God. That's outrageous. Carrie. Oh, wait, we're recording a commercial right now. We gotta tell them why we're doing this.

C (28:48)

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A (28:49)

Sorry, pod listeners. Okay, so we're five besties who've been friends for five million years and love games. So of course we made our own. It's called Quick, quick, quick. You just pick a card and have your partner give three answers to an outrageous question. It's fast, fun, fantastic, and a bunch.

B (29:05)

Of other funny adjectives.

A (29:06)

Anyone can play. Your mom, your dad, your kitten, your kids, your Auntie Edna, and even your butcher. And you know what's incredible? There are no wrong answers. Just open your brain and say, what's in it. Just quickly. And you're not going to believe this. Well, you might. Once you start playing.

C (29:20)

It's as much fun to watch as.

A (29:22)

It is to play. Seriously. So get up and go. Grab your copy now at Target and Amazon. Quick, quick, quick. It's the fastest way to have fun. On December 7, four days after the leak, Union Carbide's chairman and CEO, Warren Anderson, flew from the US to Bhopal. When he landed, state police were waiting. Anderson was arrested and charged with criminal liability, but the US Embassy in India intervened and he was treated more like a state guest than an inmate. He was driven to a guest house owned by Union Carbide for questioning, and rather than being taken to court, a judge was brought to him. His bail was set at $2,000, and although he was released later that same day, the terms of his bail stipulated that he would return to India when summoned. Two days later, he flew home. It was the last time Warren Anderson ever stepped foot in India. Reports suggest that Anderson's release was ordered by the Prime Minister himself out of fear that detaining such a high profile American businessman might scare away future foreign investment. Either way, it was a win for Union Carbide. Three days later, Anderson held a confident press conference at the company's headquarters in Danbury, Connecticut.

B (30:51)

I didn't see an angry citizen. I was treated with great respect and.

A (30:57)

Courtesy by all the officials.

B (30:59)

This is going to take some time to unravel, so don't expect a quick answer to what happened.

A (31:06)

I can tell you, as far as.

B (31:08)

The people involved, the safety considerations and.

A (31:12)

Standards, the quality of the equipment, et cetera, I don't feel that there was anything that was left to be desired. He announced that the company would donate $1 million to victims of the disaster.

B (31:25)

I am confident that the victims can be fairly and equitably compensated without a.

A (31:31)

Material adverse effect on the financial condition.

B (31:33)

Of Union Carbide Corporation.

A (31:35)

To many, the amount seemed insultingly low given the death toll and devastation Union Carbide had caused. Articles began appearing in the Indian media criticizing the company and calling for more significant reparations. Union Carbide's response was telling. Instead of considering the request, they hired a damage control firm to spin a news story.

B (31:58)

This agency manufactured a report, a technical report, which basically said it was a disgruntled employee who deliberately introduced water into the MIC tank and caused the disaster.

A (32:15)

Meanwhile, in Bhopal, Satanath stuck around to do what he could to help. In the aftermath of the disaster, the most important task was was connecting victims with the necessary health care.

B (32:27)

I decided this is where I'm going to be. I found that there was a gap that I could fill and that I could be very purposeful there. So I decided to continue and I decided to focus on as number one priority, healthcare.

A (32:46)

The next step was helping survivors understand their legal rights. Many victims were unfamiliar with the legal system and didn't realize that they might be owed compensation.

B (32:57)

Criminal liability and criminal accountability and criminal justice, not retributed justice, deterrent justice. These have been uppermost in the demands that survivors have made throughout the years from point zero till today.

A (33:15)

It was an uphill struggle, but there were too many victims for Union Carbide to simply walk away. In 1985, one year after the leak, the company proposed a settlement to The Indian government. $300 million. It was rejected. Not only that, the Indian government then petitioned to move the case from the US To India. It made more legal sense. That's where the disaster occurred and where the victims lived. As soon as the case was established in India, the government went on the attack. They sued Union Carbide for $3.3 billion. But Union Carbide's attorneys had prepared a loophole defense. Since the factory in Bhopal was technically owned by an Indian subsidiary of Union Carbide, they argued that the parent corporation bore no financial responsibility for the leak or its consequences. A federal judge ultimately agreed that the case should not be heard in the.

B (34:09)

US this disaster happened in India. People are in India. India's quality of life is very different. Value of life is very different. The compensation rates are very different, all of that. And so this case should not be brought to us.

A (34:26)

Four years of suits and defenses and legal jargon would pass back and forth Before Union Carbide and the Indian government agreed on a settlement, Union Carbide agreed to pay $470 million as directed by India's Supreme Court. In turn, the court ordered all civil and criminal proceedings against the company and its officers to be quashed. Despite paying nearly half a billion dollars, Union Carbide continued to deny any responsibility for what happened in Bhopal.

B (34:56)

The company maintained it was sabotage.

A (34:59)

The Indian government said the leak was the result of negligence.

B (35:02)

As a sellout, the figure is substantially.

A (35:04)

Lower than the government had been seeking.

B (35:06)

But the authorities appear to have decided that the people of Bhopal have waited long enough.

A (35:13)

For many, it was a slap in the face. Roughly half a million Indians were victims in the suit against Union Carbide. Divided among them, the settlement broke down to about $500 each. Not much to live on if you were permanently disabled.

B (35:30)

While we in Bhopal were waiting for a judgment on whether Union Kaba it should pay interim relief and how much from the Supreme Court we got the announcement of a settlement to Satnath.

A (35:46)

The biggest insult was that no victims were ever consulted. The settlement was a business deal between a corporation and government officials without input from the people on the ground hurt most by the disaster.

B (35:59)

And the criminal charges against them, which was culpable homicide, not amounting to murder and other grievous offenses, would be quashed.

A (36:13)

Money may have changed hands, but little else changed. The payout felt like pennies in a bucket, given what the victims had been through. So some of them appealed Union Carbide's settlement offer. The plaintiffs argued that the fallout from an industrial disaster of this magnitude couldn't be accurately assessed. Something like Bhopal at a scale that large had never happened before. So there was no precedent to measure compensation. Not to mention future generations were already being negatively affected.

B (36:45)

There would be anywhere from 200,000 to 250,000 people who have not known any rest. They're chronically ill. Most of them are bedridden. There are children born to gas exposed parents who are born with all kinds of malformations. And tens of thousands have growth and development disorders and we now know, also immune system problems. But what is manifest to me in all these years is how it starts one way and then it progresses and you see new manifestations.

A (37:28)

Six years after the disaster, in 1991, the Indian government formally dismissed the victim's appeal. It seemed that the fight was over and Union Carbide had won. But the disaster in Bhopal had stained the company's image in the public Eye and Union Carbide's fortunes never recovered. Their stock dipped and it kept slipping. In 1999, Union Carbide was up for sale. It was bought by another large chemical company, Dow. One of Dow Chemicals first moves was to distance themselves from any of the company's actions prior to 2001, when the merger was complete. But Paul was the elephant in the room. Nine years later, in 2010, a handful of low level Union Carbide workers in India were convicted of death by negligence. But none of them served a day in prison.

B (38:22)

The US government played a major role in seeing that no one was punished. That at least the Americans were not punished first. US government would not extradite Warren Anderson and they would keep making excuses and refuse to extradite and listen.

A (38:42)

Activists in India considered him a fugitive from justice. And for years Indian investigators made attempts to extradite Anderson, but they were unsuccessful. Back in the U.S. warren Anderson would be hounded by protesters for much of the rest of his life. But he would never face the Indian people again. And in 2014, he died in a nursing home in Florida at the age of 92, having never served a day in prison. In 2021, the COVID pandemic hit Bhopal especially hard. One of its casualties was Rajkumar Keswani, the journalist who had tried to warn the people of Bhopal. And he wasn't the only one. Survivors of the Bhopal gas leak made up roughly one in five residents and they were more vulnerable to infection.

B (39:34)

In the COVID pandemic, we were able to compare the infection rate, the mortality of exposed and unexposed in the district of Bhopal. Among the survivor population, we found four times more mortality among the gas exposed. So this is 36 years, years after the disaster you have a manifestation like this.

A (39:59)

In the four decades since the gas leak, the Union Carbide factory has been left to rust. But the legacy of its contamination continues.

B (40:09)

Nothing of consequence has been disposed. The plant's still there. Unfortunately, it is not well guarded. There are animals and children and men and women passing through and it is rotting and it still has a lot of dangerous stuff there.

A (40:30)

One Bhopal resident told the Atlantic in 2018 that when people dug up soil decades after the leak, they broke out in rashes. She also said children had died after playing in contaminated ponds. This past January, 41 years years after the leak, the Indian government announced plans to finally clean the site. Unfortunately, their solution is less than ideal. The toxic waste will be sent to a smaller, poorer town for incineration activists have denounced the government's plan.

B (41:03)

This whole thing has become a PR gimmick. Thousands of tons of toxic waste continues to remain buried. Now won't be able to get away with this in Europe or us, but.

A (41:15)

They'Re able to get away here. One other legacy of the tragedy in Bhopal is the Indian people's determination to never let it happen again. In the 1990s, another American chemical giant, DuPont, spent a decade trying to relocate one of its nylon factories from Richmond, Virginia to Goa, India. But nylon production creates huge pollution, so locals banded together and protested. Eventually, dupont backed down. Later, dupont tried to build a plastics plant in Chennai, but this time locals teamed up with the state government to demand the company commit to environmental protection. Instead of agreeing, dupont canceled their plans. This points to what Satanath sees as the big picture lesson of Bhopal the insidious nature of corporate crime.

B (42:15)

Most of us are victims of this crime because we have all these environmental exposure, involuntary exposure, and it is the least acknowledged, the least hardly ever convicted crime that continues.

A (42:33)

Anywhere. Money can be made, rules can be broken, toxins dumped into the environment and lives destroyed. And not just in India.

B (42:44)

What we witness today, we are at a very critical time. Climate change and global worsening of environmental quality. All of these are corporate crime. Wherever we may be in the world, we all live in Bhopal.

A (43:20)

Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad free right now by joining Wonder plus in the Wonder App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey@wondry.com survey. On the next episode of Lawless Planet. After a beluga whale is found in in the Arctic wearing a camera strap, it signals the return of a mysterious Cold War era program. The idea of training an animal to kill a human is wrong from my point of view and I said that if that was my next project, I'd quit. If you want to learn more about how to help the victims of Bhopal, please check out Satanas Sharangi's organization, Sambhavna Trust. We'll include a link in the show notes and for today's episode we relied heavily on 5 past midnight in Bhopal, the epic story of the world's deadliest industrial disaster by Dominique Lapierre and Javier Moro and special thanks to Manish Chandra Mishra. Lawless Planet is produced and hosted by me, Zach Goldbaum. This episode was written by Brit Brown, our senior producer and senior story editor is Derek John. Senior producer for Wondery is Andy Herman. Our senior managing producer is Nick Ryan. Our managing producer is Sarah Kenny Corrigan Our associate producer is Lexi Pirie. Sound design by Kyle Randall Music by Kenny Kuziak. Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for version Sync Fact checking by Naomi Barr. Our legal counsel is Deb Droze. Executive producers are Marshall Louis and Jenny Lauer. Beckman for Wondry. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week. Hey basketball fans. Steve Nash here. Ready to elevate your basketball IQ? I'm teaming up with LeBron James to bring you the latest season of Mind the Game and we're about to take you deeper into basketball than you've ever gone before. We're breaking down the real game, the X's and O's that actually matter. In every episode. We'll share elite level strategy, dive into career defining moments and explain the why behind plays that changed a game, a team or a championship. LeBron and I have lived this game at the highest level for decades. We've been in those pressure moments and made those game changing decisions decisions and learn from the greatest basketball minds in history. Now we're pulling back the curtain and sharing that knowledge with you. Time to go beyond the highlights and get into the real heart of basketball. Watch Mind the game now on YouTube Prime Video or listen wherever you get your podcasts.