Bhopal Victims Attack Offices of Union Carbide
Victims of the Bhopal gas disaster rampaged through Union Carbide Corp. offices here Wednesday, and a human chain surrounded the building screaming: “Killer Carbide, quit India!”
Hundreds of other protesting victims squatted outside the Supreme Court, which Wednesday began hearing a petition challenging the government’s right to settle on compensation for all victims of the world’s worst industrial accident.
Protesters want the court to scrap a $470-million settlement agreed to by the government Feb. 14 as “full and final” compensation for all sufferers from the disaster.
About 570,000 people say they are entitled to compensation for the Dec. 3, 1984, gas leak at a Union Carbide pesticide plant in the central town of Bhopal that has killed at least 3,300 people and injured 200,000.
About a dozen people broke away from the protest outside the offices of the multinational, based in Danbury, Conn., and stormed into the reception area, breaking windows, smashing furniture and scrawling slogans on the walls, a company spokesman said. The 10 employees in the reception area were unharmed.
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