Eastern suburbs under thick smog

Fire at Deonar dumping ground, around 5,000 sqm area affected.

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At Wadala depot on Friday. (Source: Express Photo by Kevin DSouza)

Over 24 hours after a massive fire broke out on Thursday at the city’s largest garbage dumping ground at Deonar, cooling operations continued on Friday and fire officials called in for more water tankers for the operation. Around 5,000 sqm of the dumping ground was affected, leading to a thick smog filling the eastern suburbs.

According to fire officials, cooling operations went on all through Friday. “Controlling a fire in a dumping ground is tough because the fire breaks out deep inside the garbage mound. There is no danger of spreading, but such fire emits a lot of smoke,” said S B Karade, assistant divisional fire officer.

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Cooling operations was tough on Friday because of wind and inflammable material. The ground houses towers of unsegregated, unprocessed garbage way above the Airport Authority of India’s permissible limit of 35m, the height of a 10-storey building.

The smoke that erupted from the dumping yard created a fog like cover in the eastern suburbs, inconveniencing residents. “There was dense smoke and the visibility had reduced to 10 ft on Friday morning. The fire was huge and people could see the flames a kilometre away,” said Dr Sandeep Rane, a cardiologist at Pestom Sagar in Chembur, 2 km away from Deonar.

Civic officials said the recent demolition of illegal structures inside the dumping ground could be one of the causes of the fire. The fire had broken out near the cemetery end around 11 am on Thursday, where a demolition drive were conducted two day ago, said officials. The fire department rushed four fire engines and three water tankers to the spot on Thursday. Forklifts were used to scatter the burning garbage and the fire department tried to douse the flames.

mumbai.newsline@expressindia.com

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