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I still remember the night the gas leaked. I was sleeping with my three children Nazma, Shareef and Iqbal beside me. I woke up with a panic because it felt like some one was choking me. The room was filled with pungent smoke. I thought some one was burning chillies to ward off the evil eye. The smoke got heavier and heavier. My husband and children too got up and started coughing. The children were groaning that they could not bear it. So we carried the children in our arms and joined the surging crowd outside, all trying to get away. People were running blindly. Many were falling down. By then my eyes had become so swollen that I could hardly open them. I had my dupatta covering my eyes. I was carrying four year old Nazma and my husband was carrying Shareef who was six and Iqbal who was two years old. I had gone a little distance when Nazma started making gurgling and choking sounds. I pried my eye lids open and saw there was froth coming out of her mouth. I looked around but could not find my husband. So I went inside the nearest house I could spot and asked for some water for Nazma to drink. At around 2 in the morning my sister's husband who was on duty at the Union Carbide factory came looking for us. He too was in a bad condition. He told me not to stay in the house because the gas was still leaking and it was getting thicker and thicker inside the house. But I could not go anywhere so I spent the night with the family. In the morning my eldest brother came to fetch me. He took me to the dispensary at the Carbide factory. There they put some drops in my eyes, that's all. My husband who had been looking for me with the children also reached my brother's place. After four days we went back to our own home. The children could not keep any food in, they were vomiting all the time. My eldest son Shareef died after three months. We tried everything to save his life. Took him to different doctors, spent a lot of money but he didn't survive. Three months after that I gave birth to a son. We named him Yosouf. He was born sickly and had strange looking yellow coloured eruptions on his neck. When he was about a year old, I was still breast feeding him, he died in his sleep. Another daughter was born to me - Shahbano. She too was sick all the time, we lost her too. My son Iqbal is not growing properly, he is 16 years old now but looks like he is 10 or 12. My husband used to carry cement bags before the gas, but he hasn't been able to work. Both of us have this burning in the chest. We went to different private clinics as long as our savings lasted. Doctors charged 50 to 100 rupees for every visit. When we had no money left we had to go the government hospitals. But visiting government hospitals was so tiring and it seemed like a waste of time. The doctors there would write down the medicines we were supposed to take before we even finished telling them about our problems. The tablets they gave me made me feel worse. In my family I am the only one to get any compensation. I got Rs 15,000/-. We spent much more than that on our treatment. I sold off all my jewellery when my son got admitted to the hospital. Also we borrowed a lot of money for our treatment. When I told the judge about our children who died he said I had to get documentary evidence. All of us in the family remain sick. My husband has spells of unconsciousness. He has also become very irritable and some times gets violent. We could not send our children to school because there was no money. My daughter was so keen to go to school. I worry myself all the time - about my husband, my son's health, my daughter's marriage. I am feeling much better since I have started taking treatment at Sambhavna. But it is a long walk and some times I can not make it on the appointed day.
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