THOUGH not as catastrophic as the 1984 accident at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, when nearly 4,000 people were killed and over half a million were injured, the Tianjin accident — death toll 114 so far — is another stark reminder of how very lethal the chemicals we all depend on can be if things go wrong.

INDIA’S supreme court has ordered the government to release millions of dollars in compensation for victims of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy which killed 3,000 people.