NEW DELHI: Violent protests broke out in the central Indian town of Pithampur on Saturday, after authorities moved hundreds of tons of toxic waste to its disposal facility from the site of the worst industrial accident in history: the Bhopal chemical leak disaster that took place 40 years ago.

Pithampur, which is located in the Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh some 230 km from Bhopal, the state’s capital, was selected by the local government as the place where 337 metric tons of the toxic waste remaining in Bhopal after the 1984 catastrophe will be incinerated over the next several months.

Twelve trucks carrying the toxic material reached Pithampur on Thursday, raising fears among its residents that, after the material is burnt, its residue will pollute the soil and water in nearby villages.

Protests against the move began at the disposal facility on Friday evening and turned violent on Saturday morning, as hundreds of residents threw stones and clashed with police.

“We don’t want a repeat of the tragedy that took place in Bhopal 40 years ago that claimed thousands of lives and that has impacted the lives of thousands of families,” Dr. Hemant Kumar Herole, president of the Save Pithampur Committee, which helped organize the protest, told Arab News.

“This is a tribal area and people are simple, and they just want to save their lives from possible exposure to toxic waste ... Under no circumstances will we allow this waste to remain in Pithampur. The administration tried to explain that they would conduct some sort of trial, but we oppose any trial as well. We want this toxic waste to be removed from here and sent to a place where it poses no danger to humans, animals, or the environment.”

Local authorities were not available for comment but the state’s chief minister, Mohan Yadav, told reporters that the government “respects the spirit of public sentiment” and would suspend the waste incineration at least until Monday, waiting for advice from the court that had ordered the Bhopal cleanup.

The efforts to clean the Bhopal site follow a high court decision that gave Madhya Pradesh a one-month deadline following the 40th anniversary of the disaster to clear the toxic waste.

On Dec. 3, 1984, about 45 tons of the deadly chemical methyl isocyanate leaked from an insecticide plant owned by the Indian subsidiary of the US Union Carbide Corporation, located in Bhopal, the capital city of Madhya Pradesh.

The poisonous gas spread over the densely populated neighborhoods surrounding the plant, killing around 20,000 people. Nearly half a million survivors were left suffering from respiratory diseases, blindness, and other chronic health issues.

Some survivors with life-changing injuries or health issues have received compensation, but that usually amounted to just a few hundred dollars.

Toxic material remaining in the abandoned factory continued to pollute groundwater in the surrounding areas and has been linked to high rates of birth defects among residents.

While the removal of the 337 tons of waste has made headlines as a positive milestone, Rachna Dhingra, coordinator of the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal, said it was a “PR gimmick” that did little to mitigate the pollution or the other impacts of the disaster and would potentially create similar problems in a different place. She also stressed that those 337 tons were only a tiny portion of the total amount of dangerous material still left in Bhopal.

“This is just 1 percent of the waste. This is not the waste that is contaminating the groundwater and soil ... There are still thousands of tons of toxic waste sitting inside the factory in the pits and in the solar evaporation ponds outside the factory,” she told Arab News.

“The waste that has been removed, it was not causing any problem in Bhopal, but when you burn it and bury it in Pithampur, it will cause problems ... I think they’re going to create a slow-motion Bhopal in Pithampur.” 

Dhingra also claimed that victims of the Bhopal disaster do not support the move.

“They say that we should use (the money spent on removing and transporting the waste) for our rehabilitation and not to pay for what the polluter should be paying for ... The only solution for this is to seal the waste in stainless steel drums and ask the polluter, Union Carbide and Dow Chemical, to take it to their country and do whatever they would like to do with it,” she said.

“Just as in 2003, when the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board asked Unilever to take their mercury waste back to the US, the polluter — Union Carbide and Dow —should be held accountable and should be asked to take their toxic waste back.”