At least three persons, including a woman, were killed when a huge part of a landfill in east Delhi’s Ghazipur collapsed on Friday afternoon, police said.
The collapsed mound’s debris swept away a car and a two-wheeler, along with their riders, into the nearby Kondli canal, a police official said. He said the woman was riding on the two-wheeler.
“The woman’s body has been recovered. Another two-wheeler rider who also fell into the canal has since been rescued. About four-five vehicles are reportedly trapped under the debris,” the official said.
A National Disaster Response Force team was also pressed into the rescue operations.
East Delhi Municipal Corporation Mayor Neema Bhagat confirmed three deaths and blamed the Delhi government for what she said was “poor maintenance” of the landfill spread over 70 acres.
The Delhi Fire Service (DFS), which got a call about the accident around 2.45 p.m., sent four-five JCB machines for rescue operations.
“We have taken out five people from the canal and rushed them to the Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital here,” a DFS official told IANS.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia also left for the accident spot.
Aam Aadmi Party MLA from Kondli, Manoj Kumar, passed the buck to the East Delhi Municipal Corporation, saying the civic body did not pay attention to the increasing height of the dumped waste at the site due to which the pile collapsed.
“Had the (Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled) MCD not let the height of the waste material increase above its optimum level, the incident would not have happened. They did not pay attention and the height of the waste pile increased and it finally collapsed and killed people,” Manoj Kumar said.
He said not even a single BJP leader had visited the spot.
“They (BJP) do nothing but politics over various issues,” the AAP leader said.
