March 29, 2008	Saturday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 20, 1429

NEW DELHI, March 28: Fifty survivors and victims of the 1984 Bhopal gas leak arrived in New Delhi on Friday after a 37-day march and demanded to meet the premier to seek a clean-up of toxic waste at the site.

It was the second such 800-kilometre trek from Bhopal city in central India to the national capital in two years. The protesters included three 11-year-old children and a woman in her eighties.

“I could walk because there was a doctor with us to take care of our problems. This time, we’d rather die rather than go back if our demands aren’t met,” said Munni Bee, a woman in her sixties.

Activists and protesters want the site to be cleared of thousands of tonnes of toxic waste embedded in the soil as well as jobs and compensation for health problems suffered by the victims.

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

The survivors want US giant Dow Chemical, which took over Union Carbide in 1999, to pay for the clean-up and health damages. They also want a supply of clean water. Dow says all liabilities were settled in 1989 when Union Carbide paid $470m to the Indian government to be allocated to survivors and families of the dead.

But local court cases in India have since challenged Dow’s stand and called for more compensation for victims as well as for the environmental damage.

Activists say the plant site still contains around 5,000 tonnes of toxic chemicals, which have contaminated soil and water up to five kilometres away.

“We have been drinking poison. We have nowhere to go as no one will buy our house,” said Bee, one of the marchers. —AFP