Raghu Rai's exposure of a corporate crime

Foetuses aborted due to pregnant women's being exposed to the toxic gas

There is a hospital scene in which men are holding on to children who are sick and injured. At the back, half a dozen nurses tend to the suffering. In another picture we see a sick man with his head tied. His relatives hold a blanket over his chest and knees. A young woman is also included in the people looking after the ailing man. In another picture is an old man covered with layers of blankets, trying to rest and recover. A woman is seen in the next photo in a burqa while her daughter is seen in salwar-kameez. As the girl frowns, the mother wrings her hands in despair. In another there is figure in the bed covered with quilts and sheets. At the back, bricks peep through walls where the white coating is missing. In another there are brooding women in saris and salwar-kameez..

A disturbing photo shows a woman holding up her clothes to reveal a large glaring wound in her stomach that has been stitched. Behind her is a man with a bandaged head, in crutches. Another picture brings in an array of jars containing foetuses. They are lined up in a terrace and behind are minarets of mosques. Another photo brings a collection of large paper bags containing human skeletons. In the next picture we see an old man being covered with a blanket by one of his relatives. A woman is seen in the next photo putting her arms around an old sick man, probably her father or father- in-law. A gathering of women, young and old, is shown in another photo. They are either standing or sitting and they all look unhappy with the world.

'What I saw was to change my life,' said Raghu Rai. 'It was an unprecedented scene of chaos. What startled me was the silence of death. Thousands of people had already died. Thousands more had died in the 11th September attack on the World Trade Centre. I wanted to show the world what happens to people when corporations are not held liable for their actions, when they are allowed to cut costs and safety standards.'

The exhibitions offered a unique insight into human and environmental tragedy that engulfed the inland city of Bhopal in December 1984, when an explosion at Union Carbide's plant unleashed lethal gases into the city, causing the world's worst industrial disaster. Photographer Raghu Rai arrived in Bhopal hours after the gas leaked to find chaos as the dead were being buried and cremated, and the hospitals overflowing with thousands of patients. Rai realised he was witnessing a disaster of unprecedented proportions, the start of a long nightmare for the gas exposed survivors.