Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Burn that trash!




I like how they think they need to label the smoke, as if we couldn't tell what it is.

In January 2016, fire raged in the largest landfill in the Indian city of Mumbai.
Located in an eastern suburb of the city, the Deonar dumping ground extends across 132 hectares (326 acres) near Thane Creek. It receives over 3,700 metric tons (8.1 million pounds) of trash per day, about one-third of the city’s waste. With piles of trash that rise up to 30 meters (100 feet)—the equivalent of a nine-story building—the landfill has literally become a mountain of trash.
Beginning on January 27, 2016, sensors on the Terra, Aqua, and Suomi NPP satellites began to detect evidence of smoke and fire at the landfill. The fires continued to burn intensely for four days, sometimes sending smoke into densely populated neighborhoods. In some parts of the city, the smoke pushed air pollution to the highest level recorded since air quality data monitoring began in June 2015, according to Hindustan Times. For four days, more than 70 schools closed because of the smoke.
The Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 captured a natural-color image (upper) of the burn scar on January 28, 2016. Smoke is visible streaming southwest into Baiganwadi, a neighborhood near the landfill. The false-color image (lower) also was acquired by OLI, but it shows the location of the fire hot spots more clearly because it includes observations from the shortwave infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.
It is not clear why or how the fires started, though some reports suggest they may have been set intentionally. Fires in landfills are often particularly difficult to extinguish because they burn through methane, plastic, and other highly flammable substances.

2 comments:

  1. I liked seeing these photographs, and wondered where the airport was located?

    In August of 1971, while flying from Bangkok, Thailand (where I had changed planes after leaving Saigon, Viet Nam) to Tel Aviv, Israel, my TWA airliner stopped to refuel in Bombay, India (which is called, "Mumbai", today).

    Unfortunately, by the time my plane landed in Bombay, I was so sleepy that I could only briefly open my eyes to glance out of the window of the airliner, and promptly went back to sleep, never leaving the plane to look at the passenger terminal in Bombay, India, or maybe even spend a day or two touring before continuing to Israel.

    Still, technically, I reckon I can say, "Once upon a time, I was in Bombay, India".

    I enjoy looking at Hollywood movies, television shows, and news reports, and being able to say, "I was there".

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    1. It's actually still Bombay - in English. Mumbai is the local language name. The French pronounce the name of their capital city Pair-ee, while in English it's Pair-iss. Just a matter of language choice.

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