Two persons, including a woman, were killed and more than a dozen were injured after a huge portion of the garbage mountain at the 50-metre-tall Ghazipur landfill site collapsed on Friday evening. Authorities said 7-8 vehicles on a road parallel to the landfill site were washed away. The road has a canal and a drain on each of its side.
The impact of the caving in was such that an iron railing broke and motorists were thrown into the canal. Rescue operations continued till late in the night as police fear there might be more victims. The eye witnesses described the collapse as a horrific landslide that covered more than half a kilometre of the road parallel to it. Many vehicles might be buried under the debris, authorities said.
Chief Fire officer of the Delhi Fire Services (DFS), Atul Garg, said the incident took place around 4 pm and more than 25 fire tenders were immediately rushed to the spot. "According to witnesses, huge chunks of garbage came running down and fell into the canal parallel to the site.
The force was such that water from the canal washed away people and vehicles passing on the road. Vehicles and pedestrians fell into the drain on the road side," Garg said.
He further said: "Many cars and scooters were buried under the debris. They were immediately rescued. Seven vehicles have already been pulled out from the canal and their occupants have been rescued. Teams are searching for more victims. Many more might have been washed away."
He also said that the water inflow to the canal was immediately stopped. "This helped us search for the victims and the bodies. Our teams are working to ensure minimum casualties," he added.
DCP (East) Om Vir said two have been declared dead, so far. "They have been identified as Abhishek, 20, and Rajkumari, 23. The woman was riding a scooter and got buried under the debris. She was pulled out by rescue teams, along with Abhishek and five others. All of them were rushed to hospital, where the duo was declared dead on arrival," he said.
Within minutes of the tragedy, teams from Delhi Police, Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA), National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), and Civil Defence personnel, fire fighters, ambulances, and divers arrived at the spot and a large-scale rescue operation was launched.
The Ghazipur landfill site, functioning under the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC), is the oldest of the four landfills in the national Capital. Nearly 3,300 metric tonnes of waste is dumped on to it every day. At present, it has over 12 million tonnes of waste, which is way beyond its capacity.
The landfill site has grown up to 50m, or over 15-storey high. The permissible limit is between 15m and 20m.
Meanwhile, the blame game between the civic bodies and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government continued. The Corporation claimed the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), which was asked to allot land to establish new landfill sites, failed to do so. The AAP government, in turn, blamed the civic body for not paying attention to waste management.
Delhi government spokesperson Nagendra Sharma tweeted: "Repeated warnings by the High Court and the Apex Court on the height of landfill sites fell on deaf ears of the MCDs and the DDA. This is criminal negligence..."
According to the Corporation officials, the Ghazipur landfill site, which was established in 1984, was on the Yamuna floodplains and was vulnerable. It simply gave way due to the heavy rains, they said.
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