The trial court in the Bhopal Gas tragedy case has held the owners of the Union Carbide pesticides plant, the Indian government and "to some extent" Government of Madhya Pradesh responsible for the "magnitude" of the disaster.

"The problem was worsened by the plant's location near a densely populated area, non-existent catastrophe plans and shortcomings in health care and socio-economic rehabilitation," said the judgement delivered by Chief Judicial Magistrate Mohan P Tiwari on June 7 here in the December 1984 disaster case that left over 15,000 people dead.

"Analysis shows that the parties responsible for the magnitude of the disaster are the two owners, (their US-based parent company) Union Carbide Corporation and the Government of India and to some extent Government of Madhya Pradesh," it said.

It was 'Tank No 610' containing 42 tonnes of methyl isocyanate (MIC) that spewed the deadly gas into lungs of thousands of sleeping people on the intervening night of December 2-3, 1984, just a month before UCIL's license to produce MIC-based pesticides was to expire.

According to the judgement, the lethal MIC along with phosgene and chloroform was stored for the manufacture of pesticides at Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) plant here under the brand name of 'Sevin' and 'Temik'.

Also, there were two other tanks--611 and 619--besides 610 for the purpose of storing the poisonous MIC in liquid form in the plant, located close to a densely populated area.

Initially, the UCIL got a licence from the Government of India for manufacturing 5,000 tonnes of MIC-based pesticides in collaboration with Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), USA from 1975-1982 on the condition that it should be free from air, water and soil pollution.

However in 1982, they applied for the renewal of licence specially foreign collaboration part following which the Centre (Udyog Bhawan, Delhi) granted permission to manufacture MIC-based pesticides till January 1985, a month after the tragedy struck.

On that fateful night, MIC began leaking from 'Tank 610' between 12-12.45 AM when a large amounts of water entered it.

It was the resulting exothermic reaction that increased the temperature inside the tank to over 200 degree Celsius raising the pressure to a level it could not withstand that led to the release of huge quantities of toxic gases into the atmosphere.

It is known that workers cleaned the pipelines with water but they were not told by the supervisor to add a slip-blind water isolation plate. Because of this, and of the bad maintenance, the workers consider it possible for water to have accidentally entered the tank, according to the judgement.