25 Years after midnight: Bhopal tragedy revisited

Mention "Chernobyl", and most people recognize the name immediately.  Dozens died there, following a nuclear power plant accident, and thousands were sickened.  But the world's worst industrial disaster - far worse - predated Chernobyl by a year and half in Bhopal.  

a memorial to the gas victims, situated just outside the abandoned Union Carbide plant

This month on CNN International, 'World's Untold Stories' travels to Bhopal, a city in central India that suffered the world's worst industrial disaster in December 1984. 

the abandoned Union Carbide plant

A quarter century after the disaster that has claimed thousands of lives, CNN returns to see what has changed - and what hasn't.  In its special documentary, ''25 Years After Midnight'', the program talks to the survivors and activists who have devoted their lives to speaking out about the disaster, and helping its victims. 

Shortly after midnight, on December 3, 1984, thousands of people were killed when a cloud of chemicals leaked from a Union Carbide pesticide plant.  25 years later, coverage of the incident and its aftermath has settled into something of an annual ritual before the world's attention drifts away until the next anniversary.

But for many in Bhopal, the disaster isn't just a moment in history to be remembered on anniversaries.  It's an ever-present part of their daily life.  

Satinath Sarangi, the founder of Sambhavna clinic sees new patients every day who are suffering from the effects of the disaster. The clinic provides free medical care for survivors of the gas tragedy.