Hundreds of hectares of lakes in India burn more than 30 hours

An extensive lake of India many times catches fire and fumes with smoke because of the many flammable contaminants.

Lake Bellandur in Bangalore, India, experienced many consecutive fires since the beginning of the year. Authorities know the cause, but they are struggling to find a way to solve the problem, National Geographic said on February 14.

When Shalini Sahni moved to India after eight years in the United States, she aspired to find a home on the water like she used to be in Austin, Texas. This is not easy in the state of Bangalore or Bengaluru, a populous city adjacent to the sea in central India. But the electrical engineer found a similar point in the city's largest Bellandur apartment complex. In less than a year, the beautiful view of her lake was obscured by the fire on the water.

The fire on January 19 lasted more than 30 hours, causing the ashes to pour into the balconies and cars more than 9.7 km away. In less than two weeks later, the lake caught fire again. Ho Bellandur became the focus of international news sites in February last year when videos filmed the fire causing fever.

Another typical image associated with the 364-hectare lake is a white foam that regularly covers the canals. The foam even piled up to a few floors high and spilled onto nearby streets and buildings. " Why is there a lake in the world that burns fire? Water should be used to put out fire, not to fuel the fire, " Sahni commented. But in Lake Bellandur water contains a mixture similar to a fire conductor. It is a strong mixture of domestic waste and industrial waste.

The out-of-control development turns Bangalore into a centralized IT and processing center of 10 million people. About 40% of the city's untreated sewage flows into Bellandur Lake every day. The industry discharges straight waste into the water. Residents in the city easily dump garbage on the banks of lakes and trucks often dump down rubble bricks from construction works. As a result, lakes can ignite through hard or liquid waste floating on the lake surface or combustible methane gas generated from water with low oxygen levels.

Environmental scientist Priyanka Jamwal studies water quality in lakes in Bangalore for the Ashoka Institute for Ecological and Environmental Research. Incidentally, she checked Lake Bellandur just a day before the first fire this year flared up. She noticed 265 million liters of sewage pouring into the lake every day. According to Jamwal, the solution is to treat wastewater and regularly monitor the flow of water into the lake.

However, the Indian government has struggled to develop at the speed of Bangalore's rapid urbanization. Large-scale wastewater treatment plants will not be operational by 2020. Bellandur and other lakes in the city, artificial buildings built for irrigation in the 16th century, are nearly contaminated. . But water management is complex due to overlap between 5 states and local agencies.