1 week Ago By Vishakha Chaman
Gurgaon: A massive fire broke out at the Bandhwari landfill on Saturday night. The fire department sent eight tenders to tackle the flames, but they still raged at the time of filing this report. "We received an emergency call about a fire erupting at Bandhwari around 9pm.
The situation is still uncontained at the moment, with firefighting efforts still ongoing," said Gulshan Katra, deputy director (technical) at Haryana fire and emergency services around 10pm. Environmentalists raised concern, pointing out that this was the third fire of the day in addition to two blazes across 80 acres of the Aravalis. A delegation of greens will meet environment minister Rao Narbir Singh on Sunday to raise the issue of rising forest fires.
"This is the third fire of the day in the Aravalis The inaction of the state govt has raised serious concerns. The continuous burning of waste in Bandhwari and surrounding Aravalis over the past month has created hazardous living conditions. The deteriorating air quality has made the city uninhabitable anyway and may force residents to relocate.
We are living in a gas chamber," said environmental activist Vaishali Rana MCG additional commissioner Mahabir Parsad, who was at the landfill site, said the cause of the blaze was yet to be determined. "Efforts are on to douse the flames. An investigation would identify what triggered the fire," he added.
Parsad said he would request the deputy commissioner for deploying a fire engine at the landfill round-the-clock, particularly during the summer months. Earlier in the day, Two forest fires tore through 80 acres of the Aravali range. The protected forests of Mangar and Badkhal — crucial for preventing desertification and supporting diverse wildlife — were engulfed in the flames that sent thick smoke billowing into the city's skyline.
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