Delhi’s Ghazipur Landfill Site Catches Fire, Toxic Fumes Add to Deteriorating Air Quality

A fire broke out at the notorious Ghazipur landfill site in east Delhi on Wednesday, November 25, as per officials. The toxic fumes billowing from the towering landfill has added to the pollution levels in the national capital, where air quality deteriorated from very poor to severe levels on the same day.

According to fire officials, they received information regarding the blaze at 9.56 pm on Tuesday following which five fire tenders were rushed to the spot.

Later, three more fire engines were dispatched to douse the blaze. No injuries have been reported so far.

Nine fire vehicles are currently on the spot to control the blaze at the site, which continues to rage, they said. However, so far there have been no reports about the cause of the fire at the site.

The landfill site in Ghazipur, commissioned in 1984, has been in the news time and again. The garbage dump has been overflowing since 2002, however, garbage continued to be dumped here in the absence of any alternate option.

Earlier in 2017, two people were killed and four vehicles fell into a drain after a part of a landfill site collapsed in Delhi’s Ghazipur area in 2017.

At the last count in 2019, the landfill had crossed 65 metres (213 feet), just eight metres short of the iconic Qutub Minar, which is 73 metres high. The Ghazipur landfill site rises by nearly 10 metres a year and was expected to surpass the height of Qutub Minar and other vertical structures in the country.

Another such garbage dump in North West Delhi’s Bhalswa, the peak of which is more than half the size of the Qutub Minar at 40 m, had collapsed in August 2020 following intermittent heavy rainfall in the region. The collapse had led to the destruction of over 15 houses and injured at least one.

(With inputs from PTI)