Team Herald
MARGAO: For the last few months, South Goa Planning and Development Authority’s (SGPDA) abandoned Biogas Plant site was used a dump yard for discarded thermocol/sytrofoam fish crate. On Thursday at 1.40 pm, the dump caught fire giving out a huge plume of clack smoke. Within 15 minutes, the eight-foot stack of thermocol was reduced to ashes.
The Fire Brigade fire-fighters arrived around 2 pm. In the meantime, shopkeepers and bystanders got together and put out most of the flames. They even moved a locked car belonging to a TCP official which was parked next to the site and was at risk of catching fire. The staff and manager of Inox provided the water hose which the volunteers used to put off the fire.
Interestingly, the SGPDA Member Secretary, Ashok Kumar, who rushed to the site, claimed that he was not aware that the Biogas site was used to store the thermocol crates.
Dominic Noronha, former Sarpanch of Dramapur, who witnessed the event, informed that it was the people’s effort which stopped the flames from spreading. He blamed the SGPDA and the Margao Municipality for turning a blind eye to such hazards and demanded that “the government should inspect all such dump yards across the State.”
“Some people were using the shed inside as a changing room. Their lives could have been at risk”, he said.
