![]() “The heat is rising rapidly and much earlier than usual,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, in April. Across much of northern India, where more than a billion people live, temperatures have regularly soared past a hundred and ten degrees, and slightly lower temperatures have often combined with very high humidity-a dangerous combination. But this spring’s heat wave, which continued into the summer, has been unprecedented in its severity, duration, and geographic expanse. Each year has always felt hotter than the last. I have family in Delhi, and have visited regularly over the decades. The charred bodies of cows and dogs were found in the debris. In the end, it took two weeks to extinguish the blaze. ![]() “Firefighters find it difficult to wear masks and protective gear because of the heat.” A nearby school, blanketed by hazardous smoke, was forced to close. “The weather poses a big challenge for us,” Atul Garg, the chief of the Delhi Fire Service, said, nine days after the fire began. In the past, similar fires had been extinguished within hours or days, but Bhalswa burned for weeks. By the time firefighters arrived, flames had engulfed much of the landfill. Dark, toxic fumes spewed into the air, and people living nearby struggled to breathe. ![]() On the afternoon of April 26th, Bhalswa caught fire. This March was the hottest on record in India. Thousands of people who live in slums near the mountain’s base work as waste pickers, collecting, sorting, and selling the garbage created by around half of Delhi’s residents. Fifteen miles from the seat of the Indian government, cows rummage for fruit peels and pigs wallow in stagnant water. Broken glass and plastic containers stand in for grass and stones, and plastic bags dangle from spindly trees that grow in the filth. A gray mountain of dense, decaying trash rises seventeen stories, stretching over some fifty acres. The Bhalswa landfill, on the outskirts of Delhi, is an apocalyptic place. This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
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