After the fire in a supermarket in Rivière-Salée, local residents warn of a health disaster

In Rivière-Salée, like many local residents, this couple of traders are going through an ordeal. Since the fire in the supermarket located near their store, they have been bothered by pestilential odors from the start of the day.

Since the event on October 10, tons of food have been rotting in the charred building.

In the morning when I open the store, the smell is in the store. During the day, it disappears because there is air conditioning, people coming and going. But upstairs too, sometimes you can’t stay. The smell is there.

Retailers are not the only ones affected. Residents also suffer from these unbearable odors and the invasion of rats.

There’s not much breeze, and yet it stinks. I walk past it to go to my bank and that’s where you get the smell. It’s really unpleasant.

Faced with this critical situation, the municipality and the sub-prefecture have already alerted the competent authorities. But the owners and the Regional Health Agency remain silent.

We are on a private property, so we cannot enter the building. Without the owner’s consent. So the mayor in his first letter in the exchanges he had with the manager had actually put forward the hypothesis of being able to carry out this cleaning at the expense of the owner. But other solutions were found in relation to the sub-prefecture, in this case, Mr. sub-prefect who took steps towards the service provider and also towards a control office to check the solidity of the building to know if we can enter. Until today, all these measures have been transmitted to the owner but we are still waiting. We still have smells and residents complain.

Jean-Jacques Soutarson, elected in charge of security in the city of Rivière-Salée

To date, more than a hundred people in the town are bothered by these rotten smells. A situation that has persisted for more than a month.