BHOPAL, Nov 25: About 100 protesters were arrested in central India on Monday after they invaded a plant that was the site of the 1984 Bhopal poison gas disaster and demanded its clean-up, police said.

“We have arrested about 100 people for trespassing and creating disturbances inside the factory without permission,” a police officer in Bhopal, capital of Madhya Pradesh state, said. He said the protesters were expected to be freed on Monday night.

During the demonstration, several hundred people broke open the gates of the Union Carbide plant where a poisonous gas leak in December 1984 killed 3,000 people outright and put up banners calling for the plant’s clean-up, witnesses and police said.

Environmental groups say tonnes of toxic waste still lie within the walls of the pesticide plant 18 years after what was one of the world’s worst industrial accidents.

They say the waste has contaminated the air and water and is causing severe health problems for nearby residents.

“We have been forced to take direct action because nobody has done anything,” Sati Nath Sarangi, a spokesman for the Bhopal Group of Information and Action, said.

Those arrested included activists belonging to the environmental group, Greenpeace, and victims of the gas disaster as well as some foreigners.

Aside from the 3,000 people killed at the time, thousands more died in the years afterward and tens of thousands were left with lifelong illnesses.

Although the Indian government’s civil case against Union Carbide, which merged with US-based Dow Chemical Co two years ago, was settled in 1989 for $470 million, criminal cases continue in Indian courts.

Earlier this year, a Bhopal court rejected a plea by Indian police to reduce charges against Warren Anderson, former chairman of Union Carbide, from culpable homicide to a “rash and negligent act”.—Reuters