Bengaluru's Bellandur Lake Catches Fire, 5,000 Armymen Deployed to Douse Flames
Bellandur lake is the largest of the 262 waterbodies in Bengaluru, and receives 40 percent of the total sewage.
Bengaluru, Jan 20: The 1000-acre Bellandur lake here, which receives over 40 percent of sewage generated in the city, went up into flames on Friday. At least 5,000 Army personnel were deployed to douse the fire, reports said. The fire-fighting was underway till Saturday morning.
While the fire was largely controlled by yesterday, it erupted again from at least two points of the lake later in the evening. The cooling operation went on till the time this report was first published.
One army personnel was rushed to hospital yesterday after he was bitten by a snake during the fire-fighting operation, said Major General Narpat Singh Rajpurohit, Commandant of the ASC Centre. Several reptiles make their way out of the toxic lake in case of fire, due to the rising heat.
The Bellandur lake, the largest of the 262 tanks and other waterbodies of Bengaluru, grabbed headlines last year after it released toxic fumes to the extent that residents in nearby areas were forced to remain indoors.
The National Green Tribunal in 2016 ordered the state government to detoxicate the Bellandur lake. However, the Bengaluru Development Authority (BDA), which is the custodian of the lakes, has so far failed to achieve the task.
Expert committees from Israel and UK who were invited to find solution to the crisis, said the only feasible way to detoxicate the lake would be barring the industrial bodies from releasing their effluents in the waterbody.
According to the Environment Ministry, Bengaluru generates a total of 1,280 million litres sewage per day, but had the capacity of treating only 721 million litres.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jan 20, 2018 11:01 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).