Hazra Bi wishes she could forget. But her damaged family is a living reminder of that December night 25 years ago when lethal gas leaked from a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, in the worst industrial disaster the world has ever seen.

The gas that swept through her poor neighborhood left her nearly blind in one eye, menopausal at 36, with searing headaches and breathlessness. It left her son, then 4, unable to control his bladder and suffering debilitating panic attacks. And two years ago it gave her a granddaughter born severely underweight, her legs like twigs, who still cannot walk or talk.

The Bhopal industrial disaster killed about 4,000 people in the early hours of Dec. 3, 1984. A few days later the death toll had doubled. Over the next few years, the lingering affects of the poison nearly doubled the toll again, to about 15,000, according to government estimates. Local activists say the real numbers are almost twice that.

A quarter-century later, thousands like Bi are still grappling with the affects of exposure to the deadly gas as it winds its way through generations not even born when the disaster struck. Rights groups say toxic waste from the plant still contaminates the soil and groundwater in nearby neighborhoods.

"We're still finding children as young as 2 months old being born with birth defects," says Satinath Sarangi, director of the Sambhavna Trust Clinic, which offers free health care for those exposed to gas or polluted water.

According to the government, at least 500,000 people were affected by the gas leak, and activists like Sarangi say that thousands of children, born to parents directly exposed to the gas leak or poisoned by the contaminated water, are suffering from cleft lips, missing palates, twisted limbs.

Varying degrees of brain damage are being found, as are chaotic menstrual cycles, they said. Even more common are all sorts of skin, vision and breathing disorders.

Government officials say there is no current contamination and dismiss assertions that the birth defects are related to the disaster. Babulal Gaur, the state minister for Gas Relief and Rehabilitation, says the diseases plaguing the children are only a consequence of living in poor slums.

American chemical company Union Carbide Corp. has said that the accident _ which took place when water entered the sealed tank containing the highly reactive MIC _ was an act of sabotage by a disgruntled employee, never identified, and not lax safety standards or faulty plant design, as claimed by some activists.