Bhopal gas victims stage protests

Survivors of the Bhopal gas tragedy Friday staged a series of angry protests and a march to mark the anniversary of the world's worst industrial accident in 1984 in which thousands were killed. Activists who have for years battled for medical care and financial compensation for the victims, meanwhile, organised a photo exhibition and burnt effigies representing the US company which owned the killer pesticide plant.
Separately, local government officials paid tribute to victims of the disaster, laying flowers at an impromptu memorial and observing a few moments silence before attending an prayer meeting.
At Bhopal's main Shahjahani park, an exhibition of photographs taken soon after 40 tonnes (44 tons) of lethal methyl isocyanate gas billowed from the Union Carbide plant on December 3, 1984, drew large crowds.
The stark black and white pictures included those of lifeless bodies lined along the sides of a road, a dead mother and son, a father carrying his dead child and doctors attending to the gas-affected.
"These pictures bring to life what we have heard all along - the terror and chaos of that night," said Manish Vishwakarma, a 19-year-old college student.
"I was not born then and these pictures help me understand what must have happened that night."
In another part of Bhopal, about 250 victims and activists, marched about five kilometres (three miles) to the now derelict Union Carbide plant, to burn some 15 effigies depicting Union Carbide, Dow Chemicals - which took over Union Carbide in 2001 - and the Indian government.
Protestors also chanted slogans against Union Carbide, its then chief Warren Anderson and the Indian government.
The daytime ceremonies followed a midnight vigil in which hundreds of survivors and relatives revisited the plant site to light candles in memory of at least 15,000 people who, according to Indian government records, died as a result of the gas.
Many survivors, mainly slumdwellers who were living around the plant, still suffer from illnesses including cancer, gynaecological problems and tuberculosis, as well as poor eyesight and breathing problems.