Requested by the Mauritian government to send aerial means to fight the fire which is dragging on at the Mare-Chicose landfill, France has refused to accept the request. Explanations.
Is solidarity between the islands of the Indian Ocean just an empty word? Some would be tempted to believe it, as Mauritius called on its sister island for help to put out a major fire, but in vain.
Asked to send to the rescue the Dash 8 currently positioned in Reunion for the dry season, France refused. But the reasons would above all be technical.
But first, what is the situation in Mauritius? On November 6, a fire broke out in the Marie-Chicose waste landfill center, in the southeast of the country.
Over the days, the fire smoldering among the garbage spread over 42,000 m2 of the site, developing a thick cloud of malodorous smoke visible and felt as far as Curepipe, the large city in the center of the country.
Widely mobilized, firefighters from three barracks of the Mauritius Fire and Rescue Service managed to contain the disaster, as reported by the newspaper Le Mauricien. But the extinction is very difficult, at a rate of 600 m2 per day. As of Tuesday, November 19, only 5,500 m2 would have been “recovered.”
“The Dash employment doctrine provides for intervention only on forest and vegetation fires”
Prefecture of Reunion
Also, several voices have been raised locally to demand international aid, and in particular the sending of aerial means to fight fires, which does not exist on Sister Island.
However, France responded in the negative to the official request made by the Mauritian authorities. “There will be no dispatch of the Dash to this fire, because its employment doctrine provides for intervention only on forest and vegetation fires, which is not the case for this underground fire on a pile of waste”confirm the services of the prefecture.
Who ensure that Reunion nevertheless provides aid to its Mauritian neighbor. “The State, following the request of the Mauritian authorities, is providing its expertise on this fire (…) through regular exchanges between the zone and civil protection headquarters of the Indian Ocean, based at the prefecture , the departmental fire and rescue service of Reunion, and the authorities of Mauritius”, specifies the prefecture.
A contribution in terms of strategy more than material means, therefore, while the fire at the Mare-Chicose site raises serious concerns locally. Qualified as “ecological time bomb”this landfill center having reached saturation must still absorb 1,500 tonnes of daily waste.
If the Mauritian government wanted to be reassuring regarding the toxicity of the smoke, the measurements of which would always be lower than the alert thresholds, it recommends to “vulnerable populations such as children, seniors and people with pre-existing respiratory conditions, to reduce their physical activities outside.”
According to one estimate, extinguishing the fire with the means available to Mauritius could still take one or even two months.
