BHOPAL: Forty years after the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster, which killed more thousands of people and left at least half a million people with severe health issues, 377 tons of hazardous waste has been shifted from the defunct Union Carbide factory for its disposal at a unit in Dhar district, officials said on Thursday.

The toxic waste was transported around 9 pm on Wednesday in 12 sealed container trucks via a ‘green corridor’ from Madhya Pradesh capital Bhopal to Pithampur industrial area in Dhar district, located 250 km away.

Amid tight security, the vehicles reached around 4.30 am on Thursday at a factory in Pithampur where the waste will be disposed off, where it will take three to nine months to incinerate, officials said.

According to Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation Department Director Swatantra Kumar Singh, “A green corridor was created for the nearly seven-hour journey of the vehicles to the Pithampur industrial area in Dhar district.”  Nearly 100 persons worked in 30-minute shifts since Sunday to pack and load the waste in trucks, he said. “They underwent health check-ups and were given rest every 30 minutes,” Singh added.

In what was one of the biggest man-made tragedies in India, highly toxic methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas leaked from the Union Carbide pesticide factory on the intervening night of December 2-3, 1984, killing at least 5,479 persons and leaving thousands with serious and long-lasting health issues.

The Madhya Pradesh High Court on December 3 rebuked authorities for not clearing the Union Carbide site in Bhopal despite directions from even the Supreme Court. The High Court set a four-week deadline to shift the waste, observing that even 40 years after the gas tragedy, authorities were in a “state of inertia”. The High Court Bench had warned the government of contempt proceedings if its directive was not followed.