How many people died as a direct result of the Bhopal incident?

• A. 4
• B. Hundreds
• C. Thousands
• D. 23

Answer: (C)

The main idea here is understanding the scale of the immediate fatalities from a toxic gas release. In the Bhopal incident, the sudden release of methyl isocyanate caused a large number of people to die very quickly—within hours to days. Those deaths were in the thousands, not just a handful or a few dozen. So the best answer reflects this large, direct impact right after the leak.

The other numbers are far too small to account for the rapid, widespread loss of life observed at the time. While there were many long-term health consequences and later fatalities, the question focuses on deaths directly attributable to the incident itself, which aligns with thousands.