World Notes India

Fifteen hundred protesters gathered at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal last week to mark a grim anniversary: deadly methyl isocyanate gas had leaked from the plant exactly a year earlier, killing at least 1,750 people and injuring thousands more. The protesters burned effigies of Warren M. Anderson, the firm's chairman, and demanded a trial. Others spent the day at Bhopal's hospitals, where some 60,000 victims are still receiving treatment. Said Nassur Khan, 36, who suffers breathing difficulties and severe stomach pains: "I wish I could die."

Meanwhile, two parallel complaints, one by a group of lawyers representing more than 120 separate lawsuits and another by the Indian government, were filed last week in U.S. district court in New York City. Union Carbide asked the court to bar the cases from the U.S., where damage awards are typically higher than in India. A day after the Bhopal anniversary, a replay of the tragedy occurred when a cloud of gaseous sulfuric acid blanketed parts of Delhi, killing one man. The source: a corroded storage tank at an Indian-owned fertilizer plant.