February 21, 2008	Thursday	Safar 13, 1429

NEW DELHI, Feb 20: More than 60 survivors and victims of the 1984 Bhopal gas leak began a trek to New Delhi on Wednesday to press for a clean-up of the toxic waste still surrounding the plant, activists said.

Forty more people are expected to join the 800-km march from Bhopal in central India to the Indian capital in the country’s north, a statement issued by the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal said.

This is the second such march by Bhopal survivors in two years.

In 2006, the survivors went home after camping on Delhi’s pavements for weeks following assurances by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that he would look into their demands for compensation and clean-up of the toxic waste. “Two years after his promise, the lot of the Bhopalis has gone from bad to worse,” survivor Rashida Bee said.

“Our effort this year would be far more difficult for the government to ignore,” she said in a statement.

The disaster occurred on Dec 3, 1984 when a storage tank at the Union Carbide India Ltd. pesticide plant in Bhopal spewed deadly cyanide gas into the air, killing more than 3,500 slum dwellers immediately.—AFP