YANGON: Firefighters are still struggling to put out a fire that broke out a week ago in a massive garbage dump, blanketing Myanmar's largest city with foul-smelling smoke.
The fire has generated a haze blanketing parts of Yangon and raised concerns about public health. It has spread across nearly a third of the 300-acre landfill in the northern township of Hlaing Thar Yar.
Some 600 firefighters and members of security forces have been fighting the blaze since April 21. Authorities have imported fire suppression bio-foam from Thailand and tried to create artificial rain to contain the spread of the flames at the peak of the hot season.
While authorities have brought the fire under control, it was difficult to estimate when it would be fully extinguished, said Win Naing, deputy director of the Myanmar Fire Service Department. The cause of the fire had yet to be determined, he added.
Twenty-six people have been admitted to hospital, many suffering smoke inhalation. Myanmar has sought medical help from the World Health Organization and other aid agencies, the state-run newspaper Global New Light of Myanmar reported on Saturday.
Local media have criticised the government's slow response in tackling what Yangon Region Chief Minister Phyo Min Thein called a "national problem".
It also highlights the growing waste problem in the city of more than 5 million people, which does not have a long-term waste management solution. The 17-year-old landfill takes about half of the city's daily trash of more than 2,500 tonnes.
"We have been throwing trash away for ages that way. Old trash produces methane and it causes fires," Phyo Min Thein told reporters.
Firefighters described challenges battling the flames and smoke under scorching heat without adequate protective equipment.
"We can't even see each other due to the smoke," said Zaw Naing Myint, a fire station leader who was taken to hospital for smoke inhalation. Zaw Naing Myint broke down in tears as he described climbing trash "piled up like mountains".
Among the worst affected were residents of Hlaing Thar Yar, one of Yangon's poorest neighbourhoods. Tens of thousands of people live in shantytowns there built from bamboo and plastic sheets and lack access to electricity, running water and drainage systems.
"I feel terrible because I can't breathe and my feet were swollen and still swelling a bit," said 65-year-old Tin Ohn, a Hlaing Thar Yar resident who suffers from diabetes and was also in hopital to be treated for smoke inhalation.