On the night of December 2-3, 1984, a tank at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal releases a cloud of toxic gas that rolls through the surrounding streets while residents sleep. This drama-documentary reconstructs those hours through five local people who lived them: a police superintendent trying to restore order in the chaos, a young factory technician who survives because he grabs an oxygen mask, and residents who watch the gas overwhelm hospitals built for a fraction of the casualties. Reenactments are cut against eyewitness testimony to show how the disaster unfolded almost minute by minute, from the first smell of gas to the streets filling with the dead and dying. The film lays out the mechanical failure behind it: six separate safety systems meant to contain a leak had been switched off or left broken, and the plant's warning siren never sounded. Estimates of the injured run from 150,000 to 600,000 people, alongside thousands of deaths, making it one of the worst industrial disasters on record.