Fire broke out in Telangana’s Neredmet garbage transfer station on Deepavali day

Garbage kept uncleared at a city transfer station caught fire on the night of October 31, as per a news report, which has seen the light of the day rather late.

Several tonnes of trash collected from areas around Secunderabad had piled up at the Neredmet garbage transfer station managed by the Hyderabad Integrated MSW Limited.

The sources said that the cause of the fire was a random firecracker that fell on the trash pile. A fire tender was reportedly called to the location along with the police, which doused the blaze. There were no casualties or injuries.

While the news was sought to be kept under wraps, video clips which surfaced later showed the blaze and the attempts to douse it.

“The next day after the festival, about eight to 10 trucks of garbage were reportedly moved out from the facility, with each truck carrying about eight tonnes of waste,” sources said.

Transfer stations are the intermediary locations where the garbage collected from households, roads and commercial entities is dumped, before it is segregated and transferred to the municipal solid waste facility at Jawaharnagar. As per the norms, the garbage should be brought to zero on daily basis at the transfer stations, so as not to cause inconvenience/hazard to the residents of the surrounding localities.

“However, more often than not, trash piles remain at the transfer stations beyond one day,” say sources. October 31 being a holiday, the accumulation was attributed to the non-availability of workers.

While the Neredmet police confirmed that there was a “minor” fire, the management of the transfer station could not be contacted for a comment. As per the Fire Department officials, the fire was initially big and started inside the pile. The garbage was effectively separated and confined to a specific area due to timely action in separating it.