Mumbai: Days later, fire still rages on at Deonar dump

The fire at Deonar started on Monday

Even as the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's fire department has prevented the fire from spreading to the rest of the Deonar dumping ground, the cooling operations continued throughout Tuesday evening - more than 24 hours after the fire started. Following this, the civic body has now gone into disaster control mode and has continued to keep the machinery and personnel at the spot citing soaring temperatures.

Adding to the woes of the citizens living in the eastern suburbs, the BMC has been busy changing its plans of processing waste at the dumping ground. After planning to process 3,000 metric tonnes of waste and generate electricity from it, the civic body changed its mind and decided to process the waste in three different parts.

It is this delay that has contributed to the fire breakouts at the dump, apart from the chemicals and rising temperatures. Now, senior officials of the solid waste management department, too, are deployed at the spot. There are eight fire engines, two jumbo tankers, seven water tankers, one Quick Response Vehicle along with firemen, station officers and a assistant divisional fire officer at the spot. To ensure there is no shortage of water, the BMC has provided the fire brigade with an additional 10 water tankers and one jumbo tanker for cooling operations.

A civic official said, "Cooling operations have to continue as the pocket fires continue to pop up at the ground. We have to ensure these are tackled immediately, hence machinery and manpower have been stationed at the dump."

Despite witnessing several fire incidents at Deonar dumping ground for the past three years, there is hardly any progress over processing waste scientifically. The civic body has even faced flak from the high court owing to its unscientific methodof dumping waste at Deonar over the years.

HC had stopped the BMC from issuing any new intimation of disapproval or commencement certificates required for construction of new buildings in the city, in 2016. The ground is now filled many times over its capacity. Deputy Municipal Commissioner of Solid Waste Management Vijay Balamwar was unavailable for comment.

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