New Delhi chokes as trash mountain fire spreads hazardous fumes

New Delhi CNN —

India’s capital choked on toxic fumes Tuesday, as a thick and pungent haze spread from a fire at a towering trash dump, the latest in a series of landfill blazes that authorities have struggled for years to bring under control.

Sections of the Ghazipur landfill in New Delhi burst into flames on Sunday, causing dangerous heat and methane emissions and adding to India’s growing climate challenges. By Tuesday, the blaze at the capital’s largest landfill had largely been put out, but people living nearby complained of throat and eye irritation due to lingering acrid air, according to local media reports.

The cause of the fire remains unknown; landfill blazes are often triggered by combustible gases from disintegrating garbage.

Smoke rises on April 23, following a fire that broke out at the Ghazipur landfill in New Delhi, India. Fires burning at Ghazipur landfill site in New Delhi, India, April 22, 2024.

Every year, as mercury levels soar during New Delhi’s scorching summers, the city’s landfills burst into flames, with rotting waste adding to India’s climate-heating methane gas emissions.

Methane is the second most abundant greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide but is a more potent contributor to the climate crisis because it traps more heat. India creates more methane from landfill sites than any other country, according to GHGSat, which monitors emissions via satellites.

The trash mountain at Ghazipur is just one of some 3,000 Indian landfills overflowing with decaying waste and emitting hazardous gases, according to a 2023 report from the Center for Science and Environment, a nonprofit research agency in New Delhi. Standing at 65 meters (213 feet), it is nearly as tall as the historic Taj Mahal, and an