Inter-faith prayer meetings and protest rallies on Wednesday marked the observance of the 30th anniversary of the Bhopal gas disaster that killed thousands. The incident, which occurred on the intervening night of December 2 and 3, 1984, features among the world’s worst industrial disasters.
Social activist groups working for the rights of the affected persons took out rallies in the old Bhopal area, where the defunct Union Carbide factory is situated, and burnt effigies.
They demanded adequate compensation, proper medical treatment and severe punishment to those responsible for the tragedy and sent out an appeal to put pressure on policymakers to ensure that there was no repeat of such a calamity anywhere in the globe. Though the official death toll stood at 5,295, NGOs working among the survivors claimed that the toll had crossed 25,000.
They Waving flaming torches, hundreds of protesters took to the streets and torched effigies of Dow Chemical and Warren Anderson. Mr. Anderson, who headed Union Carbide at the time of the leak and died in United States in September this year, remained the focus of much of the survivors’ anger.
The survivors and activists also raised concerns over the ecological impact of waste that remains in the factory premises.
