Yes­ter­day, for yet an­oth­er day, the fires at the Beetham dump, which have been burn­ing since Sun­day, dis­rupt­ed nor­mal day-to-day ac­tiv­i­ties in the city.Con­trary to the as­sur­ances of­fered by the Sol­id Waste Man­age­ment Com­pa­ny the pre­vi­ous day, some of the 12 fires ap­par­ent­ly flared up again and emit­ted new clouds of chok­ing smoke. By yes­ter­day morn­ing they had blown through the city as far north and west as the Sa­van­nah and the Mu­cu­rapo Fore­shore.

As a re­sult, city busi­ness­es con­tin­ued to take a beat­ing: many es­tab­lish­ments had to close to pro­tect the health of em­ploy­ees. At oth­ers, whose doors re­mained open, staff had to leave work to col­lect their chil­dren, as schools in Port-of-Spain had to send home stu­dents af­fect­ed by the still smoul­der­ing fires.The–pos­si­bly tox­ic–fumes al­so af­fect­ed peo­ple with asth­ma and bron­chi­tis, some of whom had to seek med­ical treat­ment.

Whether or not these fires were set de­lib­er­ate­ly, these in­fer­nos at the Beetham land­fill site are be­com­ing more fre­quent and larg­er and hav­ing more dele­te­ri­ous ef­fects on busi­ness, health and now the ed­u­ca­tion of chil­dren. There has been much talk over many years from suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments and gov­ern­men­tal agen­cies about mov­ing the dump, which is lo­cat­ed far too close in the heart of the city and ad­ja­cent to com­mu­ni­ties such as Barataria, Laven­tille, Sea Lots and of course Beetham Gar­dens.

http://www.guardian.co.tt/dig­i­tal/new-mem­bers