Siddhartha Deb revisits Bhopal, India, 30 years after its industrial disaster.

“A caption: some kind of meteorite or alien visitation has led to the creation of a miracle: the Zone. Troops were sent in and never returned. It was surrounded by barbed wire and a police cordon.” —Zona, Geoff Dyer The ruins of the Union Carbide pesticide factory lie in the very center of India, in the state of Madhya Pradesh, which means Middle State.