Two people in India set themselves on fire yesterday to protest against the disposal of hazardous waste from the decades-old Bhopal industrial disaster, local government officials said.

Images on social media showed two men dousing themselves in liquid before being engulfed in shooting flames, although officials said the men survived.

The protests erupted yesterday after authorities moved hundreds of tonnes of hazardous waste -- remaining from the world's deadliest industrial disaster in the city of Bhopal 40 years ago -- to the town of Pithampur for disposal.

"The self-immolation attempt was unfortunate, but both people are safe now," said Priyank Mishra, the administrative head of Dhar district where Pithampur is located.

A long convoy of trucks with a police escort ferrying the 337 tonnes of waste -- sealed inside containers -- arrived in Pithampur in Madhya Pradesh state overnight Wednesday.

The waste dates back to the December 1984 disaster at the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal -- when some 3,500 people were killed in the immediate aftermath of a chemical leak, and up to 25,000 are estimated to have died overall.

Twenty-seven tonnes of methyl isocyanate swept through the city of over two million people after one of the tanks storing the deadly chemical shattered its concrete casing.