Smoke emitting out of the Sonsoddo dump site has made life extremely difficult for people in the vicinity as the entire area is covered with smoke making it difficult for people to breathe. The only silver lining is that the school Manovikas is closed for the summer vacation.
“It would have been hell for the students if they had to attend classes in such circumstances and the management would have been compelled to declare holidays,” said Jose Maria Miranda who has been closely monitoring the Sonsodo dump site for years.
The intensity of the smoke changed throughout the day and a lot depended on the way the wind was blowing. Fortunately, the wind blew the smoke up the hill where there are fewer houses. Despite that the smoke settled over many houses and people had difficulty.
Richa Cotta who lives at Sonsoddo said, “We could leave the house to go to Margao or any other place but could not move around our own locality.”
Cotta also said the only blessing was that Manovikas school was on vacation otherwise it would have been terrible for the students.
Orlando Pacheco another local said, “The smoke is hazardous as it has carcinogens in it since there is plastic at the dump site that is also burning.” He lamented that successive governments have preferred to pay mere lip service in tackling the Sonsoddo issue.
“We had approached the Deputy Chief Minister as it is part of his constituency, but apparently that has also not helped,” he said.
Congressman Sidhanath Buyao, who has been following Sonsoddo for long, said this was an accident waiting to happen. He argued that unless the dump is cleared there will always be a problem and added that even Dy Chief Minister Vijai Sardesai had initiated steps to tackle the problem.
“Vijai had suggested short term and long term steps to be taken to address this problem and now we have to wait for the long term steps to be taken,” he said.
Former Chairperson of Margao Municipal Council and convener of Shadow Council for Margao, Savio Coutinho said, “We have been raising this issue for long and it was due to our efforts that Sardesai had visited Sonsoddo and given instructions before leaving the country,” he said ruing that common people have to suffer due to the callous attitude of the council.
“What is the point in having a high-powered committee headed by the Chief Minister to deal with Sonsoddo if such incidents are to happen,” he asked, appealing to the Chief Minister to pay some attention to this problem.
Aam Aadmi Party leader Sidharth Karapurkar termed the fire as a gift of the BJP to Goans aimed at choking their lungs and said it was a conspiracy that the fire broke out in the afternoon and spread so fast.
