Watch: Billows of Smoke Erupts as Delhi’s Ghazipur Landfill Continues to Rage

Ghazipur Landfill fire: Two fire tenders have been stationed at the spot, an official of the fire department said. Firefighting operations were on till late at night on Monday.

New Delhi: The massive fire that broke out at a landfill site in east Delhi’s Ghazipur yesterday continued to rage on in some pockets even after 19 hours on Tuesday as a thick blanket of smoke engulfed the area. Two fire tenders have been stationed at the spot, an official of the fire department said. Firefighting operations were on till late at night on Monday.

Speaking to the media, Chief Fire officer Atul Garg said that the firefighting operations are still underway and it might take a few more hours to complete the cooling process. The fire department said it is also using JCB machines in the operation. According to the fire department, a call was received at around 2.30 pm about the fire in Khatta at Ghazipur on Monday. No casualty was reported.

WATCH Video:

#WATCH Billows of smoke rise from the Ghazipur landfill in Delhi where a fire broke out yesterday. pic.twitter.com/XWXUt66mEF

— ANI (@ANI) March 29, 2022

On Monday, a senior fire department official said, “A total of 50 fire personnel along with 10 fire tenders are working at the spot. The fire is in the garbage mound and that makes it harder to douse. We cannot take the fire tenders upwards. The spot is vertically located and the water comes down when we spray it on the fire, which makes the task difficult.”

According to data shared by the fire department, a total of four fire incidents at landfill sites — two each at Bhalswa and Tughlakabad — took place till Sunday this year. Last year, during the same period, a total of 16 fire incidents — 12 at Bhalswa and four at Ghazipur — took place.

In 2020, a total of 15 such incidents were reported and 37 were reported in 2019, the data stated. East Delhi Municipal Corporation’s (EDMC) standing committee chairman Beer Singh Panwar said the fire was caused due to “high temperature” as plastic is one of the major components of the legacy waste and methane keeps getting generated.

He said the EDMC has deployed 22 bulldozers to help in the process of dousing the fire. Meanwhile, Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai directed the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) to submit a report on the incident within 24 hours.

In April last year, the DPCC had imposed a fine of Rs 40 lakh on the EDMC after a fire broke out at the Ghazipur landfill site.

Attacking the BJP over the latest fire incident, senior Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Atishi tweeted, “Now that MCD has been brought directly under the Central Govt, maybe PM @narendramodi and Home Minister @AmitShah will care to tell us how they plan to deal with the crisis of the Ghazipur garbage mountain!”

Last week, the central government had tabled a bill to unify all the three civic bodies in Delhi, saying the 2011 trifurcation of the erstwhile Municipal Corporation of Delhi was “uneven” in terms of territorial divisions and revenue-generating potential.

According to the EDMC’s plan, the giant mound is planned to be remediated by 2024. The civic body is in the process of floating a tender for processing 50 lakh MT of waste from the landfill.

Fires at the Ghazipur landfill are known to worsen pollution levels in the area. Such incidents had been reported in the past too, indicating “a lack of measures taken and vigilance observed by the EDMC to prevent such episodes”, an official said.

AAP MLA Kuldeep Kumar raised the latest fire incident at the Ghazipur landfill during the ongoing budget session of the Delhi Assembly and demanded action against the guilty officials.