BHOPAL: Indian activists marked the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal gas leak disaster today with protests and demands that those responsible for thousands of deaths finally be held to account.

Demonstrators and survivors capped a week of commemorations with a march to the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, where on December 3, 1984 a cloud of methyl isocyanate gas killed up to 10,000 people within three days.

Studies released earlier this week showed the shanty towns surrounding the site were still laced with lethal chemicals that polluted groundwater and soil, causing birth defects and a range of chronic illnesses.

“The survivors of the tragedy, through these protests, are venting their ire against the state government for its inaction in clearing the

toxic waste,” said Satinath Sarangi

of the Bhopal Group of Information and Action.

Research by the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) showed 25,000 people have died from the consequences of exposure since 1984.

After those studies concluded, government statistics said 100,000 people were chronically sick, with more than 30,000 living in water-contaminated areas around the factory.

A torch-lit vigil was held by

hundreds of mourners to mark the moment, soon after midnight,

when the noxious gas leaked from

a tank at the factory.

The state government of Madhya Pradesh, of which Bhopal is capital, assumed responsibility for the site in 1998, and has only partially cleared the area of hundreds of tonnes of toxic materials.

Thousands more tonnes lie just yards away from the plant in man-made “solar evaporation ponds” where Union Carbide was dumping waste for years before the accident.

State authorities say the material is not harmful and, to prove this, last month said they planned to open the site to visitors. Officials later reversed the decision. In a statement released to coincide with the anniversary,

Dow Chemical — which purchased Union Carbide in 1999 — said a 470 million dollar settlement reached in 1989 with the Indian government “resolved all existing and future claims” against the company.

Union Carbide “did all it could to help the victims and their families” until the settlement and said the Indian government should be responsible for providing clean drinking water and health services to residents.

It said at the time and continues to insist that sabotage was behind the leak. Most of the settlement money was used to pay compensation of 1,000-2,000 dollars to victims who were left unable to work or with long-term ailments, but many received nothing at all.