Nearly two decades after the Bhopal gas tragedy, the country is still ill-equipped to handle a similar industrial disaster.

Medical experts say that because of a lack of follow-up research, the country does not have a system in place for such an eventuality.

According to doctors, there is a need to study the effects of methyl iso-cyanate gas that claimed thousands of lives on the night of December 2-3, 1984.

Expressing concern over the gas disaster victims' health problems, they said the authorities were ignoring their problems.

"We believe the gas had affected the entire human body," molecular biologist P M Bhargava said. Bhargava is also the chairman of the Sambhavna Trust, which runs a hospital for the victims.

"We are not ready to face any similar disaster even after 18 years since there is no research and study facility," he said.

Emphasising the need to have preventive measures in place to deal with another disaster, Bhargava criticised the Centre and the Madhya Pradesh government for ignoring the effects of the gas.

"Neither the government nor the doctors have data about the people who were treated or who lost their lives during treatment. Doctors themselves must have done this. They do not even have adequate knowledge about treatment in case a highly toxic gas, like MIC, is inhaled by a human being. Nothing has been included even in medical education curriculum," a doctor said.

"We even do not know how many industries use similar kinds of gases or toxic chemicals and what are the preliminary treatment for their victims," he added.

H H Trivedi, who has been treating the gas victims, said: "People affected by MIC continue to suffer from respiratory disorders. But we do not have adequate research facilities to treat them."