Smoke engulfs Kodungaiyur as authorities ignore alerts

Chennai: Dense greyish-black smoke engulfed Kodungaiyur on Saturday, extending to a radius of more than 3km, due to a suspected man-made blaze in the dumpyard. Workers at the site said no official visited the spot in the last two days despite intimation. By Saturday, smoke had spread out to around 1.5 acres and was visible from as far as MKB Nagar bus terminus.While officials claimed that the incident began on Saturday noon, dumpyard workers said the fire broke out on Thursday. "We spotted smoke emanating from a small mound on ‘package three' segment of the dumpyard. The fire was small, and we informed our supervisors, who asked us to extinguish it ourselves. The flames got intense today and spread out into thick smoke," a worker said. Geo-tagged messages sent to the supervisors and corporation workers, accessed by TOI, confirmed the workers' version.When TOI visited the dumpyard on Saturday, six excavators had been deployed to trench the area and 10 more were on the way. Solid waste management superintendent engineer P V Srinivasan said the idea was to isolate the region of fire by creating trenches. "This will contain the spread. Once the affected area is cut out from the rest, we will leave it be, for the fire to die out," he added. Regional deputy commissioner (north) Katta Ravi Teja did not respond to calls.