Digital Journal

A fire originally thought to be of unknown origins has been burning in a landfill in Mumbai, India since Saturday of last week. It is so large that NASA's Landsat 8 satellite picked it up.

The city of Mumbai has been blanketed by a stinking, thick smog for the past week, the result of a fire in its largest landfill in Deonar. The resulting air pollution from the fire in the 326-acre garbage dump forced the closing of 74 schools run by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). The Deonar dumping ground is located in eastern Mumbai and is the largest of the three city landfills. The trash in the Deonar landfill is 30 meters high in some places, the equivalent of a nine-story building. The fire was detected by NASA sensors on Sunday, and according to the Air Quality website, SatAQ Blog, changing winds were spreading the toxic smoke into different parts of the city.

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