Bhopal disaster
Between 3,500 and 25,000 people died as a result of contact with the cloud of toxic gas. Up to 500,000 people were injured. Many of the injuries are permanent. Some of the chemicals led to birth defects. The numbers vary so vastly because there are no exact figures about how many people lived in the neighborhood of the plant. About 100.000 people were living in a radius of 1 km around the plant where the disaster happened. The owner of the factory, UCIL, was majority-owned by UCC, with Indian Government-controlled banks and the Indian public holding a 49.1 percent stake. In 1989, UCC paid $470 million ($929 million in 2017 dollars) to settle litigation stemming from the disaster. In 1994, UCC sold its stake in UCIL to EverReady Industries India Limited (EIIL), which subsequently merged with McLeod Russel (India) Ltd. EverReady ended clean-up on the site in 1998, when it terminated its 99-year lease and turned over control of the site to the state government of Madhya Pradesh. Dow Chemical Company purchased UCC in 2001, seventeen years after the disaster.