Fire at Delhi's Ghazipur Landfill Site Again, Weeks After Major Blaze Was Doused

Four fire tenders were sent to the spot by the DFS within 10-15 minutes and the fire was put out under three hours.

Smoke billows from a fire at Ghazipur landfill, in New Delhi, late Saturday.

(Photo: PTI/Kamal Kishore)

A fire broke out at the Ghazipur landfill in East Delhi on Saturday night, 9 April, officials stated, about two weeks after a major fire broke out at the same site that required almost 50 hours of firefighting operations to douse.

This fire, however, was put out within three hours and there was no casualty, as per the officials, reported news agency PTI.

The Delhi Fire Service (DFS) officials said that they had been informed at around 10:30 pm about the fire in the landfill. Accordingly, four fire tenders were sent to the spot, according to PTI.

“We deployed four fire tenders as the fire spread to different piles of garbage. We acted quickly and first controlled the fire. The fire was doused at around 1 am. The fire tenders were sent back after a cooling operation to control smoke,” an officer stated.

The fire burnt for about three hours with the thick smoke posing a health hazard for the Kondli localites.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Kuldeep Kumar took to Twitter to post a video of the fire, saying, ” Ghazipur’s mountain of garbage has burnt again, people of Kondli are suffocating. But MP @GautamGambhir is busy in earning money in IPL and Modi ji is busy talking about his mind but public is questioning BJP on 15 years of misrule. And the BJP is running away, again."

The Previous Fire

A major fire had broken out at a landfill in the Ghazipur area of East Delhi on 28 March. While the incident caused no casualty, it led to a massive spike in pollution level in the national capital.

After the efforts of around 100 firefighters, the fire at the garbage mountain was finally put out nearly 50 hours after it broke out.

The fire had broken out at the garbage mountain, which stands almost as tall as the Qutub Minar, leading to a huge cloud of smoke enveloping the region and neighbouring areas. The sudden spike in levels of toxins in the air is harmful to all those who inhale it.

Last year, during the same period, a total of 16 fire incidents, 12 at Bhalswa and four at Ghazipur had taken place.

(With inputs from PTI.)