MERCURY RISING: A drongo on a thorny perch near the inferno. (Right) A thick cloud of smoke over the Corporation garbage yard at Vellalore after waste dumps caught fire on Tuesday. - Photo: K. Ananthan

COIMBATORE: More than 500 tonnes of garbage lying piled over 30 acres at the Coimbatore Corporation's compost yard along Chettipalayam Road burned for hours on Tuesday and sent smoke into residential layouts in Kurichi and Vellalore, 11 km south of the city.

Termed the worst blaze yet at the yard, it left only one option for the people: inhale the smoke and suffer. People did not know what to do - whether to stay indoors or run out of their houses. Distraught residents alleged that fire tenders were not rushed to the spot after the fire broke out around 2.30 p.m. City Health Officer N. Raghupathy said that water lorries of the Corporation were sent to put out the blaze.

"It will take four to five days for the smoke to subside and that means plenty of trouble for the layouts spread over three sq.km," secretary of the Kurichi-Vellalore Pollution Prevention Committee K.S. Mohan said.

The committee has been campaigning hard to get the yard shifted out and has even moved the High Court for shifting orders.

"We are clueless over who may have set fire to the garbage," he said. The committee members said miscreants could not have entered the yard when the Corporation had posted guards around it. "There is so much garbage in the yard that more can be dumped only if some at the yard is disposed of. The blaze occurred under such a situation," Mr. Mohan said.

The committee would be forced to carry out a door-to-door campaign for boycott of elections, he said. "We are more than a lakh people and we will not allow ourselves to be deceived this time. What hurts us most is that instead of finding a solution, some civic officials accuse us of burning the waste. This is the ploy they adopt to divert public attention from this burning issue."

Residents of Mahalingapuram and Sriram Nagar bore the brunt of the problem with a thick cover of smoke in their area. Thick clouds of smoke could be visible from the Nanjundapuram Road that was located five to six km from the yard.

People driving their cars towards home in the affected layouts said they had to roll up the windows as they crossed Podanur railway station.

An ENT surgeon, V. Anand, said he could see the smoke from five km away while driving through Eachanari towards Pollachi.

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