A South African environmental activist group has held a midnight vigil outside the Indian Consulate here to mark the 30th anniversary of the Bhopal gas disaster which claimed over 3,000 lives and presented a letter to officials demanding compensation for the victim's families.
Bobby Peek, the director of environmental activist group GroundWork, said the Bhopal incident held valuable lessons for South Africa and especially Durban, where there has been an outcry for years about the impact of the pollution from industrial waste next to residential areas.
Peek said the residents had a right to know what harmful chemicals were being used by such factories even as he decried the lack of an evacuation plan in the event of a disaster.
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Organisations from South Africa and abroad had signed a letter, which was handed over to the Indian Consul General.
This is a letter of demands to the Indian government to take a meaningful stand against Dow Chemicals, the letter said.
These demands included the payment of additional compensation to victim's families, disallowing Dow Chemicals which is owned by the Bhopal plant from making investments in that country and ensuring adequate free treatment facilities for victims of the gas tragedy.
Bhopal gas survivor, Rashida Bi, who received the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in 2004, said in the statement: "We are not expendable. We are not flowers offered at the altar of profit and power."
The Bhopal horror began around midnight on December 2-3, 1984, when a chemical reaction in a plant that made insecticides caused a leak of toxic gases that swept through the surrounding community.
The Madhya Pradesh government confirmed 3,787 deaths as a result. Unofficial estimates said the death toll had exceeded 10,000.
More than a half-million people were injured, with many dying from illnesses including lung cancer, kidney failure and liver disease.
