The World - News from Dec. 4, 1988

Hundreds of rock-throwing demonstrators in Bhopal, India, tried to storm the closed Union Carbide plant on the fourth anniversary of the gas leak that killed 2,850 people, but police blocked the charge. Police said they arrested at least 200 protesters, but organizers put the number arrested at about 500. The crowd was made up mostly of residents of the shantytowns across the road from the plant. Many said they still suffer from the effects of the toxic methyl isocyanate that leaked out of a storage tank and turned into a deadly cloud on Dec. 3, 1984. The government of India filed a $3-billion damage suit against the company in 1986, but the case is still tied up in Indian courts.