In Delhi, a colony under shadow of a garbage mountain on fire

Residents of Shraddhanand Colony, close to the landfill, were worried about the flames spreading to their homes given the strong winds blowing all day. Rekha, a resident of the colony for 17 years, had her nose and mouth covered as clouds of smoke drifted above her home. A part of her roof was singed on Wednesday afternoon, she said, and neighbours helped pour buckets of water over the roof to prevent further damage. “We’ve been up all night worried about how much it will spread,” said Rekha, whose house is just at the edge of the landfill, in very close proximity to where the fire has spread.

“The smoke stings our eyes. If we had known that the landfill was going to come up here, we would not have come to live here at all,” said Abdunnissa, who has lived in the area for 40 years.  “People tend to fall sick when the fire spreads. I had to ask my mother-in-law to move to Rohini because of the smoke. But we cannot leave the house and go from here. At least now they should stop dumping the garbage here,” Rekha added.

Firemen were still at the site on Wednesday evening and were trying to control the blaze, said DFS chief Atul Garg. “We sent 10 fire tenders to douse the fire. It spread to the ground and now the teams are working with the MCD to control it. The weather and the smoke from the fire are posing a challenge for the teams. More than 80 personnel are deployed and have been working for more than 24 hours. We have to wear protective gear because of the toxic fumes and dirty water and other liquids flowing from the yard,” he said. The firefighters were using excavators to remove excessive garbage.

“The residents have started complaining of sore throat, itchy eyes and breathing problems. Currently, eight fire tenders are working at the site. It will take at least two more days to douse the fire. Our teams are working round-the-clock,” said a fire officer.

On Wednesday afternoon, a police officer asked Nashmina Bibi, whose jhuggi is right below the slope of the garbage mountain, to take her belongings and leave. “But how can we pack everything up so quickly and where will we go,” she said. Saidun Bibi, a scrap collector, who also lives in a shack near the landfill, is in a similar dilemma. “The flames had covered the waste yesterday evening. The smoke was so bad that we spent the night outside on the main road. They’ve sent many trucks to put it out but it’s still burning,” she said. As flames flared up the sides of the mountain of waste, personnel from the fire department were working with local residents to climb up onto the lower mounds of waste and hose down parts of it.

“We have been using water, but it’s a slow process. It is also difficult to reach parts of the landfill. We are trying to direct efforts in such a way that the fire does not spread to the settlements nearby with the wind,” said an officer of the fire service who was at the spot Wednesday afternoon.

The Bhalswa dumpsite is spread over 70 acres, same as the landfill at Ghazipur. The fire at Bhalswa was the fourth instance of a landfill fire in about a month, ever since temperatures began to rise.  North MCD Standing Committee Chairman Jogi Ram Jain said that some of the inert waste generated from the trommels at the site was used over the fire to prevent its spread.

Environment Minister Gopal Rai said, “The increasing cases of fire in landfill sites are the result of increasing corruption in the BJP-administered MCD. The negligence of the MCD over the last 15 years resulted in the mountains of garbage created in Delhi.” Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor retorted that “AAP leaders are in the habit of doing petty politics whenever a fire breaks out at any landfill site”.

Rai has directed the DPCC to submit a report on the fire in 24 hours. The Environment Department will take appropriate measures and impose a penalty based on the findings of the DPCC, Rai added.

A senior DPCC official said that the methane generated at the site along with high temperature is likely to have been the cause of the fire. The DPCC inspected the site on Wednesday, he added.

The SAFAR air quality update and forecast issued on Wednesday said that “emissions from landfill fires yesterday degraded AQI”.