For the past 2鈥�3 weeks palls of toxic smoke, billowing from the Matuail landfill, have been spreading over a large part of southern Dhaka, choking the residents of many neighbourhoods, including Matuail, Jurain, Jatrabari, Sayedabad and Maniknagar.
The Dhaka South City Corporation that owns the landfill said it did not know how the fire had started there.
Local residents complain that the smoke and the stinks in it are causing them breathing difficulty, a bad cough and itchy and watery eyes for the last 15鈥�20 days.
Ahmad Kamruzzaman Majumder, founding director of the Centre for Atmospheric Pollution Studies, said that smoke from fire at landfill sites is usually far more damaging than the smoke that comes from biomass burning, as landfills have plastic materials among their wastes.
鈥楽moke billowing from fire at waste dumping sites is several times more hazardous for health than the smoke that comes from burning heaps of biomass,鈥� said Ahmad Kamruzzaman, who is also a professor of environmental science at Stamford University Bangladesh.
He said that city corporations in the country have a practice to burn wastes to reduce the volume.
When asked DSCC officer Shafiullah Siddiq Bhuiyan denied the allegations of setting fire to the wastes.
鈥業t is an accidental fire. Street waste pickers may have caused the fire unintentionally,鈥� he said, adding that their attempts to douse the fire failed as the smoke was too choking and the wastes, more dried in the winter, caused huge flames.
The DSCC called the fire service immediately as they noticed the fire 15鈥�20 days ago. The firefighters controlled the fire but did not douse it completely, said the officer.
The city corporation鈥檚 chief waste management officer Air Commodore Md Mahabubur Rahman Talukder told 抖阴精品 on Sunday that on request the fire service controlled the fire twice, but could not completely douse the flames as the waste heap is very deep.
鈥楾he situation is now better after the Saturday rain,鈥� he added.
Hasnat Jabaer, founder president of the Golapbag Math Rokkha Andolon (movement to save Golapbagh field) and a resident of Golapbagh in Jatrabari, said that although their house was more than three kilometres away from the landfill, they were having breathing difficulties due to the choking and stinky smoke.
Stinks from the dumping ground are always present there but the fire caused them to suffer the worst.
Arafat Hossain, a private car driver, said that when he was crossing the Mayor Hanif Flyover on Friday on his way to Pirojpur, all of a sudden the stinks attacked him.
鈥業 was about to vomit,鈥� he said.
Stamford University professor Ahmad Kamruzzaman said that if the fire was not intentional, it certainly involved negligence of the city authorities.
Abdullah Al Masod, director for enforcement at the Department of Environment, said that they were not aware about the pollution being caused by the fire.
He requested this reporter to supply evidence to enable them to take action.
Mizanur Rahman, a resident of Jurain, also complained about their breathing difficulty since the start of the fire.
Their repeated complaints to the south city corporation fell on deaf ears, Mizanur alleged.
Residents said that those living in Jatrabari, Sayedabad, Golapbagh, Dhalpur, Maniknagar, Jurain, Swamibagh, Kajla, Mughda and other areas within 4km radius of the landfill were the worst sufferer. They suffer during the usual days too as the air heavy with the filthy smell of the landfill hits them round the hour.
In Dhaka, the DSCC has its landfill site at Matuail, while the Dhaka North City Corporation has its landfill site at Aminbazar.
The two city corporations daily collect 6,000 tonnes of wastes generated by 20 million residents, with the DSCC dumping around 3,000 tonnes of waste at the Matuail landfill.
GHGSat Inc, a Montreal-based emission-tracking company, says that the Matuail landfill releases four tonnes of methane gas into the atmosphere every hour.
The DSCC denied the estimation of methane release.
The Matuail landfill was established in 1995 on 50 acres of land as an open dumping site.