The "Blue Lady" is anchored along the coast of Alang in the western state of Gujarat.

Last week, two judges in India's Supreme Court granted permission for the ship to be dismantled on the basis of a court-commissioned report by technical experts.

The experts said there were no radioactive materials and whatever asbestos is in the ship would be handled and disposed of properly, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.

Environmental groups including Greenpeace have alleged that the ship contains radioactive materials and asbestos that could endanger the lives of nearly 700 workers who would dismantle it and nearly 30,000 villagers living in the area.

On Thursday, Gopal Krishna, a spokesman for a coalition of environmental groups, the Indian Platform on Ship-breaking, told reporters it would file a petition seeking a review of the order from a larger group of Supreme Court judges.

The Indian Platform on Ship-breaking includes Greenpeace, the Ban Asbestos Network of India, the Corporate Accountability Desk and the Basel Action Network.

The dismantling process would take more than a year.

Environmental and labor groups have for years urged Indian authorities to sharply curtail _ or simply stop _ the work being done at the Alang shipbreaking yard, where old ships are run aground in the shallows just offshore and then dismantled largely by hand.

Old ships are not broken up in the West because of high labor costs and because they contain hazardous materials, including asbestos, that would not pass health standards.

That has made Asia _ where regulations are often lax or nonexistent _ a cheap alternative.

Ship breaking in India and Bangladesh is done largely by uneducated migrants who are given little safety training or equipment, environmentalists say.