20160310 India Civic body douses fire at dump yard after 12hour fight, cause still unknown
India Mar 09 2016 “Other”
Dead : dead 0 or unknown Burnout : 0 or unknown Injured : injured 0 or unknown
Civic body douses fire at dump yard after 12hour fight, cause still unknown
Updated: 2016-03-10-02:25
The civic body on Monday afternoon put an end to the raging fire, doused after twelve hours’ worth of efforts at the garbage dumping site at Kasba Bawda.
The garbage dumped at Kasba Bawda site caught fire on Tuesday midnight. However, the reason behind this is still unknown. A civic official said that two fire-tenders were deployed to the site as soon as they got the information.
The fire has partly destroyed the old structure of the garbage processing plant.
Vijay Patil, the Kolhapur Municipal Corporation’s (KMC) chief sanitation inspector, said, “The fire broke out intermittently either due to the methane gas emanating from the waste or due to some human error. The fire that broke out on Tuesday was on a large scale and choked the nearby residential area. We deployed two water tankers to control fire.”
Over two lakh tonne of waste was dumped at the site in the last four years and everyday over 150 tonne of waste generated in the city is dumped at the site. As the civic body has no other dumping site in the city such incidents of fire are likely to take place repeatedly till the site is cleared.
“The work on the landfill site at Takala is in its final stage and the contractor has been asked to speed it up. We can remove half of the waste piled up at the Kasba Bawda site and shift it to the landfill site. We have asked the fire department to deploy fire-tenders at the site round the clock to avoid any massive fires,” said Patil.
Civic activists have repeatedly raised the matter with the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) as fires have broken out earlier as well. The activists had demanded that fire and safety measures be implemented at the site as over 50 families reside within a half-kilometre periphery of the dumping site.
Dilip Desai, president of the city-based forum of activists, Prajasattak Samaj Seva Sanstha, said, “A similar fire broke out at the site last month and a complaint was registered with MPCB officials. But, the KMC has not taken any steps to prevent this from happening again. The compound wall surrounding the site is broken at several spots, making nearby farms susceptible to catching fire. The continuous foul odour of the waste dumped at the site has already caused several health complications for residents living near the site and now such continuours outbreaks may further affect the health of residents.”
The forum had earlier complained that the civic workers at the site had burnt the fried up garbage themselves to accommodate fresh garbage. However, the KMC states that the reason for the fire that broke out on Tuesday midnight remains unclear.
Web Source: THE TIMES OF INDIA
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolhapur/Civic-body-douses-fire-at-dump-yard-after-12hour-fight-cause-still-unknown/articleshow/51335738.cms