The sorry state of Bengaluru’s water bodies makes headlines every few months, usually when the chemical froth from one of its many polluted lakes spills on to the roads, inconveniencing office-goers, or when the effluents burst into flames.
On Feb. 17, this routine got repeated after a massive fire broke out in the middle of Bellandur Lake in south-east Bengaluru.
Firemen struggled for hours to tackle the blaze, The Hindu newspaper said, reporting that the fire originated in the thick layer of hyacinth on the lake’s surface and is likely to have been fuelled by the chemical waste deposits.
“Waste has been dumped in the lake deliberately. Either someone has set it on fire, or the chemicals inside the lake got ignited,” a fire department official reportedly said.
Incidents such as these are now common as the city’s water bodies receive more and more chemical wastes and garbage in. In 2015, the same lake caught fire twice in three days.
Yet, little has been done to solve the problem. Here are some images of Bengaluru’s polluted water bodies:
