Ghazipur’s mountain of trash caves in, two killed

New Delhi: Two persons, including a woman, were killed when a huge portion of a landfill in East Delhi’s Ghazipur garbage landfill collapsed on Friday afternoon and swept away several people including vehicles plying on road into the nearby Kondli canal.

Panic prevailed in the area soon after the incident, prompting scores of residents, passersby, and motorists run to rescue people who came under the rubbles. Police has identified the deceased as 30-year-old Rajkumari and 20-year-old Abhishek. 

According to DCP (East) Omvir Singh, the woman was probably riding a scooter when the site collapsed. Five people have been rescued and divers continued to search the drain for other possible victims and survivors. Also, all the vehicles that submerged into the canal were retrieved, including a JCB.

The Delhi Fire Service (DFS), which got a call about the accident around 2.45 pm, sent four-five JCB machines for rescue operations. “We have taken out five persons from the canal and rushed them to the Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital here,” a DFS official said. 

A National Disaster Response Force team was also pressed into the rescue operations. The official said that rescue operations were on and the death toll could go up. Meanwhile, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia went to the accident spot and blamed the BJP-ruled municipal corporation for the accident.

The CM, who took to Twitter, wrote: “Visited Ghazipur site. It’s man-made disaster. Criminal. Mountains of garbage. Why doesn’t MCD use modern technology to manage solid waste?”

The AAP MLA from Kondli, Manoj Kumar, also blamed the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC), saying the civic body did not pay attention to the increasing height of the dumped waste at the site due to which the pile collapsed. “Had the MCD not let the height of the waste material increase above its optimum level, the incident would not have happened,” Mr Kumar said. Meanwhile, EDMC Mayor Neema Bhagat of the BJP blamed the AAP-ruled Delhi government for what she said was “poor maintenance” of the landfill spread over 70 acres.

A Hyundai X-cent, a motorcycle, and a scooter were pulled out from the waters. Locals were the first to respond to the incident. Many of them jumped into the water and began rescuing people. Fire fighters and disaster management teams arrived a little later and used cranes to fish out the vehicles from the drain. “We pulled out four persons from the drain. Two of them died. We are unsure about how many more people are inside,” said Satya Sundaram, additional DCP (East).

“Rescue operation is underway. Reason of the incident can be ascertained only after investigation,” said Ranbir Singh, commissioner of the EDMC. “In a fraction of seconds, my life turned. With a blink of an eye, darkness prevailed  and when I woke up, I was struggling in water,” said Ayyub, one of the survivors. Locals fear that the number of people who drowned may go up as many people were in the market, buying livestock for Id.