Fire broke out at the Coimbatore Corporation’s dump yard at Vellalore on Saturday night and continued to raze through the accumulated waste area.
According to Corporation sources, the fire that began around 8.30 p.m. quickly spread around, aided by breeze, to cover a large area of the accumulated waste. The Corporation has dumped nearly two lakh tonnes of waste, both organic and inorganic, over the years.
To control the fire, the civic body had immediately pressed into service eight water tankers, requested the services of three fire tenders from the Fire and Rescue Services Department, and also deployed four heavy earth moving equipment to segregate the waste from catching fire.
The operations continued well into the Sunday evening and efforts were on to extinguish the fire at the earliest, the sources said.
Accumulated waste catching fire at the Vellalore dump yard had become almost regular during summers. The Corporation had come under criticism for not preventing the outbreak of fire and the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board and National Green Tribunal had repeatedly instructed the civic body to take remedial measures.
“Since the waste catching fire has become an annual feature, the Corporation should station more water tankers and fire tenders at the yard. It should also immediately start the work to bio-mine the waste,” said K.S. Mohan, a member of the Kurichi-Vellalore Pollution Prevention Action Committee.
The Corporation in a press release issued on Sunday said the civic body would segregate the waste to prevent the spread of fire. It had posted five sanitary supervisors and a few conservancy workers to monitor the dump yard round the clock.
The release also said that the Corporation would station five more water tankers to take the total vehicles to 13, two more earth movers to take the total to four vehicles and sprinkle treated water on the waste to prevent outbreak of fire.
The release further said that Commissioner Sravan Kumar Jatavath and Deputy Commission S. Prasanna Ramasamy inspected the dump yard.