Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (SP)

Mangaluru, May 15: Thick, black cloud of smoke which gets released from the garbage dump of the city at Pachanady has been posing health hazards to the people living in its vicinity. Reports say that a few families which found the stench and pollution unbearable, have left their homes to live elsewhere.

The bad odour in the area has been posing the risk of spread of communicable diseases. Dousing of the fire has posed a formidable challenge. In spite of the efforts of the city corporation to extinguish the fire, the dump continues to emanate smoke and smell in areas like Pachanady, Kudupi, Tiruvail etc.

MLA, Dr Bharath Shetty, visited the dumping yard on Tuesday May 14 along with some city corporation officials and health officials. Environment engineer of the corporation, Madhu, informed the MLA that the garbage produced now is about 125 tonnes more than the capacity of the processing unit and therefore this additional garbage gets into the soil without getting processed.

Bharath Shetty suggested to use sand to douse the fire and asked the local lorry owners to dump mud on the fire and smoke appearing in the dump. The fire is expected to obe doused by Wednesday May 15.

The MLA said that he has received complaint of some trucks from Kerala disposing off garbage here. It is said that the money earmarked for developing garbage disposal unit development has been diverted to road and drains. When the officials wore masks to cover their noses, some locals objected, asking them to understand the suffering of the locals by removing the masks.

Executive engineer, Gururaj Maralahalli, Suratkal area commissioner, Ravishankar, in-charge health officer of the corporation, Dr Manjayya Shetty and others were present.