Bho ‧ pal /bəʊˈpɑːl/ BrE AmE
a city in the north of India, where in 1984 over 3000 people died in the first days after poisonous gases escaped from a factory owned by an American company, Union Carbide. Since 1984, many other people living in the area near the factory have developed serious health problems and in total 14,000 people have died from illness. In 2004 the Indian government asked the courts in the US to force Union Carbide's new owner, Dow Chemicals, to clean up the poisonous chemicals still present in and around the factory.