EIGHT CONVICTED OVER INDIA GAS DISASTER
Baku, June 7 (AZERTAC). A court in the Indian city of Bhopal has sentenced eight people to two years each in jail over a gas plant leak that killed thousands of people in 1984.
The convictions are the first since the disaster at the Union Carbide plant - the world`s worst industrial accident. The eight Indians, all former plant employees, were convicted of "death by negligence". One had already died - the others are expected to appeal.
Campaigners said the court verdict was "too little and too late". Forty tonnes of a toxin called methyl isocyanate leaked from the Union Carbide pesticide factory and settled over slums in Bhopal on 3 December 1984.
The Indian government says some 3,500 people died within days and more than 15,000 in the years since. Campaigners put the death toll as high as 25,000 and say the horrific effects of the gas continue to this day.
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