Ghazipur landfill fire extinguished after seven hours

New Delhi: A massive fire that had erupted at the Ghazipur landfill in East Delhi on Saturday evening was extinguished in the early hours of Sunday. It took nearly seven hours for fire fighters to extinguish the fire. A fire was reported on Saturday around 5.50 pm at the massive landfill, which had partially collapsed triggering a fatal accident recently.

“Five fire tenders were rushed and the blaze was finally brought under control at 1.30 am,” the Delhi Fire Services official said. The 45-m high landfill was shut down following an order by lieutenant-governor Anil Baijal in the wake of the collapse incident in which two persons were killed.

The landfill site was saturated in 2002, and the civic body has been “looking for an alternative site for long time, but a clearance from the NGT is needed”. 

The East Delhi Municipal Corporation manages the landfill site that was started in 1984 and is spread over 29 acres. According to officials, the permissible height for a garbage dump is 20 metres. Every day, 2,500-3000 metric tonnes of garbage is dumped at the Ghazipur site.

Meanwhile, the East Delhi Municipal Corporation on Sunday said it has set the ball rolling for setting up a waste-to-energy plant of 2,000 MT capacity at the landfill site. East Delhi Mayor Neema Bhagat said the corporation was concerned about such fire incidents and the idea now was to “recycle maximum garbage.”