Bengaluru, Jan 19: Bellandur Lake in South East Bengaluru, infamous for its severe pollution levels, caught fire once again on Friday.
Residents living around the 910 acres lake reported huge clouds of smoke emitting from the highly polluted lake. The smoke, which could be spotted from kilometres away, is being observed nearly a year after a similar plume of smoke caught the eye and invited the ire of the National Green Tribunal.
The fire was first spotted around 10 a.m., and has tempered only around mid-afternoon. However, smaller plumes of smoke from multiple places could still be seen, said Sonali Singh, who lives nearby.
“It does seem like a methane burst due to the increasing pollution in the lake. There is a small centre of deep yellow flames, perhaps from the methane, and huge volumes of yellow-ish tinged smoke,” she said.
While a fire department tender was sent to the spot, the vehicle could not access the point of the fire, said officials. “We will stand on the banks as a standby. But, we cannot reach the place of the fire which is in the middle of the wetlands,” said an official.
It was in February 2017 that a similar fire had seen the NGT taking up a suo motu case, and eventually lead to pressure on the state government to formulate plans to clean up the lake. The lake receives over 480 million litres of raw sewage from the city daily.
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