a second waste landfill station on fire

How to ignore the Dash 8 loan request, by the Mauritian authorities, to extinguish the fire at the Mare-Chicose landfill. This landfill center, located in the heights of the East-South-East, has been engulfed in flames for three weeks.

After the refusal of Reunion Island, with bush fires multiplying during this period of drought, those responsible for waste management in the sister island reopened the La Martinière transit station located in Surinam. This return to service was temporary, specifies L’Express de Maurice. It was to accommodate garbage trucks for a few days to ensure storage of garbage and give firefighters time to contain the Mare-Chicose disaster. Unfortunately, fate persists. A fire broke out this Monday, November 25, 2024 at 9:30 a.m., in the center of Martinière, confirms IonNews.

These fires, whether intentional or accidental, highlight the difficulties encountered by the authorities of Mauritius in the management and burial of waste. In a constrained territory, subject to violent climatic hazards and a relatively high population density (1.2 million inhabitants), the management of household and industrial waste is a challenge.

For the new Minister of the Environment, Rajesh Bhagwan, as well as the Junior minister, Joanna Bérenger, these repeated fires are not the result of chance: “This is the result of their laxity (Editor’s note: ex-government) We have opened an investigation to determine under what conditions the former Minister of the Environment and the Savanne district council authorized the reopening of the former La Martinière transfer station.

While waiting for answers, the urgency for Mauritius is to put out the fires and reopen to access, again, the landfill centers.