India clears toxic waste 40 years after Bhopal gas disaster

Indian authorities moved hundreds of tonnes of hazardous waste remaining more than 40 years after the world's deadliest industrial disaster struck the city of Bhopal, media reported Thursday.

Some 3,500 people were killed in the immediate aftermath of the chemical leak on the night of December 2, 1984, and up to 25,000 are estimated to have died overall. In 1984, 27 tonnes of methyl isocyanate (MIC), used in the production of pesticides, swept through the city of over two million people after one of the tanks storing the deadly chemical shattered its concrete casing.

The order to clear the waste was made in December -- after the 40th anniversary of the disaster -- by the high court in Madhya Pradesh state, which set a one-month deadline.