title: Five Past Midnight in Bhopal: The Epic Story of the World's Deadliest Industrial Disaster
author:  Dominique Lapierre 
description: On the night of December 3, 1984, a cyanide cloud drifted over the streets of Bhopal, India, set loose by a leak in a nearby chemical plant. When the deadly fog lifted untold numbers of the city's residents--perhaps as many as 30,000, by some accounts--lay dead, while half a million others were injured. Dominique Lapierre, a French journalist and longtime champion of India's poor, joins with Spanish writer Javier Moro to recount the terrors of that night, about which the whole truth may never be known. The deaths are but one part of the authors' long, sometimes elaborate tale, which relates how the industrial conglomerate Union Carbide had come to build its vast chemical complex at Bhopal, one meant to be a glory of technology and, ironically, to save thousands of lives brought low by insect-wrought starvation. There are few villains but many heroes in the authors' account, which explores the margins at which good intentions conflict with the profit motive, at which cost-cutting omissions yield horrifically unintended consequences. It all makes for a thoughtful and disturbing book. <i>--Gregory McNamee</i>
zlib_text: 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Saving Verakko
  
  
  
  
  
  Victoria Aveline
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Copyright © 2020 Victoria Aveline
  
  
    
  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or
  used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except
  for the use of quotations in a book review.
  
  
  This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people,
  or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places,
  incidents, and events are the product of the author’s imagination and any
  resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments,
  events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
  
  
  
  
  
  Cover art by [Mayhem Cover Creations](https://mayhemcovercreations.com/)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Contents
  
  
  [Chapter 1](part0003.html#_Toc60494127)
  
  
  [Chapter 2](part0004.html#_Toc60494128)
  
  
  [Chapter 3](part0005.html#_Toc60494129)
  
  
  [Chapter 4](part0006.html#_Toc60494130)
  
  
  [Chapter 5](part0007.html#_Toc60494131)
  
  