MARGAO
The inevitable has happened at Sonsodo. A portion of the Sonsodo waste treatment plant wall gave way on Saturday morning as the shed was overloaded with a whopping 15,000 tonnes of wet waste sans treatment.
The incident brought to a halt dumping of daily waste into the plant as the debris and the waste that spilled on the road leading to the plant blocked the road leading to the treatment plant. In fact, garbage laden Municipal trucks were all found parked at Sonsodo for want of space to unload the daily waste.
It was only around evening that the Municipal officials managed to clear the debris and the waste that had blocked the road leading to the plant, clearing the road for the garbage trucks to enter the plant.
Margao Municipal officials, who rushed to the site upon hearing the news of the plant wall giving way due to excess dumping of waste, in private said what has happened at Sosnodo on Saturday morning was inevitable in the absence of treatment of garbage at the plant.
An official pointed out said the wall collapsed as it could now bear the weight of the waste mound since the Margao Civic body was not treating the daily waste for over a year and half, with daily wet waste
only stacked inside with a JCB machinery pushing the daily waste inside to make space for the next day’s waste.
The incident is believed to have occurred before 9 am on Saturday and it came to light when a driver of a garbage truck spotted the debris and the waste spilled on the road leading to the plant. In fact, a driver pointed out that the incident could have ended in a tragedy had the wall collapsed at a time when the trucks head to the plant to unload the morning waste.
Margao Municipal Chairperson Lyndon Pereira, Ward Councilor Sadanand Naik, Municipal Engineer, Manoj Arsekar, Assistant Engineer, Vishant Naik, other engineers, Sanitary inspectors, Viraj Arabekar and Sanguelkar rushed to Sonsodo upon hearing the news.
The MMC Chairperson later told media that the portion of the wall has collapse due to excess waste stacked inside the shed. He, however, attributed the incident to the absence of power supply to the plant since the fire incident that engulfed Sonsodo, burning down power transformers and other electrical equipment.
“It’s not that the plant was not in operation, but the process was slow. The absence of power supply after the fire incident has further aggravated the situation inside the shed resulting in the accumulation of the excess weight inside the shed”, Lyndon said.
He said the MMC has now written to the Goa Waste Management Corporation’s intervention to bail out the Civic body to work out a solution.
Meanwhile, a garbage site supervisor told The Goan late evening that the debris and waste that spilled on the road leading to the plant has been cleared and that two garbage trucks have unloaded waste into the shed. He said the remaining trucks will unload the waste into the plant later in the evening or on Sunday morning.
