A judge hearing the Bhopal gasdisaster case asked Union Carbide Corp &lt;UK> and the Indian
government to agree on interim compensation for the victims.
    Judge M.W. Deo said he had made the appeal because the
court case was likely to be a long struggle for the disaster
victims.
    The Indian government is demanding more than three billion
dlrs from Union Carbide on behalf of some 526,000 claimants
following the world's worst industrial disaster in December
1984.
    According to official Indian figures, 2,413 people were
killed and more than 200,000 injured when a cloud of methyl
isocyanate gas from a Union Carbide pesticide plant enveloped
Bhopal.
 Reuter
