A crowd of protesters have staged a demonstration to mark three decades since the world’s deadliest industrial disaster took place in India’s central city of Bhopal.
Protesters displayed placards and burned effigies representing US-based Dow Chemicals on Tuesday, marking the 30th anniversary of the 1984 industrial disaster.
The activists called on the government to speed up legal action for greater compensation over the tragic event.
They also demanded Dow Chemical clean up the site, which they say is still contaminated.
More than half a million people were poisoned in the industrial disaster, which was caused by a deadly gas leak at a pesticide manufacturing plant run by the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh state, on the night of December 2, 1984.
Between 8,000 and 10,000 people were reportedly killed within the first three days of the incident and another 8,000 or more have lost their lives from gas-related diseases ever since.
In early November, a handful of protesters, including first- and second-generation victims of the Bhopal disaster, announced that they have gone on a hunger strike in the hope of bringing the government’s attention to the plight of the victims.
In 2012, the Indian government filed a petition in the Supreme Court asking for higher compensation from the UCIL. The initial payment was set at USD 470 million in a settlement reached in 1989.
Meanwhile, Dow Chemical, which purchased the UCIL after the Bhopal disaster in 2001, says all liabilities were settled in the 1989 agreement.
GMA/MHB/AS
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