By 2020, Ghazipur Garbage Mountain In Delhi Will Be Taller Than The Taj Mahal And It's Not A Good Thing
The Ghazipur landfill located on the outskirts of eastern Delhi is going to rise higher than the Taj Mahal by next year. The landfill covers an area larger than 40 football fields put combined the landfill get higher by 10 metres a year and it&rsquos 65 metres high at present which is just eight metres short of the Taj. The Supreme Court of India had warned that red warning to be installed on the dump to alert the passing jets.
Delhi's Ghazipur landfill is expected to rise so much that it will surpass the height of the iconic Taj Mahal in Agra. The Ghazipur landfill located on the outskirts of eastern Delhi is going to rise higher than the Taj Mahal by next year and thus will become a fetid symbol of one of most polluted cities in the world.
The landfill covers an area larger than 40 football fields put combined, the landfill get higher by 10 metres a year and it¡¯s 65 metres high at present which is just eight metres short than the Taj Mahal which is 73 metre tall.
The landfill was opened in 1984 and by 2002, it had reached its capacity and should have been closed. The rest of history and now the heap of garbage has become so evident that last year, the Supreme Court of India had warned that red warning to be installed on the dump to alert the passing jets.
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"About 2,000 tonnes of garbage is dumped at Ghazipur each day," a Delhi municipal official told on condition of anonymity to the French news agency AFP.
In 2018, the section of the heap had collapsed due to heavy rain killing two people. The dumping was stopped for few days, but was started later as authorities couldn¡¯t find an alternative.
The incidents of fire breaking out are common as methane gas coming from the dump makes catches fire easily.
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The release of methane from the garbage puts the people living near at greater risk because mixed with atmosphere can be deadly, said Shambhavi Shukla, senior researcher at the Center for Science and Environment in New Delhi.
Apart from this threat, the daily pollution of both air and water which put lives of the people living nearby at greater risk. The black toxic liquid oozing from the dump pollutes the water in the local canal.
"It all needs to be stopped as the continuous dumping has severely polluted the air and ground water," said Chitra Mukherjee, head of Chintan, an environment advocacy group.
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The breathing at times gets virtually impossible for residents living near the landfill.
"The poisonous smell has made our lives hell. People fall sick all the time," said 45-year-old local resident Puneet Sharma.
