'Delhi landfill' fire not yet controlled, says official

A fire that started at the sprawling Bhalaswa garbage landfill site in the capital on Sunday night is yet to be controlled, officials said.

One of three saturated landfill sites of Delhi, around 100 sq. meter area of the Bhalaswa dumping yard caught fire last night. Officials said the area that caught fire had exposed garbage and was not covered with debris. Harmful chemical vapours and gases from the landfill sites which frequently catch fire pose threat to Delhi's air-quality, already recorded as very poor.

"Some garbage was not covered and it caught fire. We are trying to cover it using debris," Sanjay Jain, Engineer, Department of Environment Maintenance Services (DEMS) at North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC), told IANS.

Delhi fire services officials said several fire tenders were rushed to the site late Sunday night, while three fire tenders are still stationed there.

The Bhalaswa landfill is spread over 40 acres and has gained about two metres in height since 2017, officials said. About 2,000 tonnes of mixed garbage is dumped here every day.

Delhi has three landfills - Ghazipur in the east, Okhla in the south and Bhalaswa in the north. Only the one at Bawana in the northwest is an "engineered solid waste dumping and processing site".

According to the 2016 solid-waste management rules, a landfill site must not exceed 20 metres in height, must not be older than 22-25 years and must have a clay-lining at the bottom to save the land and groundwater.