2. S1 : In the roll call of human history, the sleepy capital town of Madhya Pradesh is indelibly linked with one of the world's worst man-made catastrophes.
S6 : Industries across the globe became less complacent and began tightening their safety protocols.
P : More than 2,000 died instantly.
Q : On the night of December 3, 1984, a poisonous grey cloud spread out from the Union Carbide Plant in Bhopal, suffocating more than three lakhs of its unsuspecting residents.
R : The disaster shook the world, especially when hindsight revealed that almost all safety regulations had been flouted by the plant.
S : The rest were doomed to wheeze, hobble and gasp their way through life, their organs "eaten up" by the deadly combination of gases that leaked out of the plant.
The correct sequence should be :
- AQ - R - S - P
- BS - P - Q - R
- CQ - P - S - R
- DS - R - Q - P
Explanation
S1 identifies the subject — the Bhopal catastrophe — and Q pins it down: the night of 3 December 1984, when a poisonous gas cloud spread from the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal. P states the immediate toll (over 2,000 died instantly), S describes the survivors' fate (doomed to "wheeze, hobble and gasp", organs "eaten up"), and R gives the global aftermath — the world was shaken once hindsight showed safety regulations had been flouted. S6 follows naturally: industries worldwide tightened their safety protocols as a result. Hence Q-P-S-R.