The city on Saturday morning woke up to a thick blanket of smog replete with the suffocating odour of burnt plastic from the fire that raged at the solid waste treatment plant of the Kochi Corporation at Brahmapuram and where it kept raging well into the early morning hours.
The smog was witnessed mainly in South, Kadavanthra, Panampilly Nagar, and Vyttila. Many of those who had ventured out at the time initially mistook it for fog though the unmistakeable odour of melted plastic set things straight.
“I was driving down from a friend’s place to my home near South around 5.45 a.m. when I noticed the fog-like thing. The visibility was so poor that I had to drive very slowly,” said Arjun Bala, a corporate employee.
Causes unease
Savithri, a cleaning worker from Thripunithura, encountered something similar when she got down from bus at Vyttila even as she felt the pungent smell of burnt plastic. Employees of a private hospital at Vyttila complained of unease though the situation improved soon.
“The stretch between Panampilly Nagar and South railway station up to Perumanoor was very smoky, and many passengers could be seen coughing at the station,” said Chandrahasan Vaduthala, a government employee, who was out to take an early morning train to Alappuzha.
Interestingly, the situation at Thrikkakara, which is much closer to the plant and is often hit with nauseating waves of odour during normal times, was by and large unaffected. “Perhaps the wind took it in the direction of the city,” said M.S. Anilkumar, vice president, Thrikkakara Residents Association Apex Council. M.A. Baiju, Chief Environment Engineer, Kerala State Pollution Control Board, said smog remained suspended at the atmospheric level during late night and early morning hours when the atmospheric temperature is low owing to the inversion phenomenon.
