A massive fire at Panama's largest landfill has generated a
"highly toxic"
cloud of smoke over populated areas near the capital, firefighters said on Tuesday (February 14th).
The fire broke out Monday evening in the Cerro Patacon landfill, in the suburbs of the capital Panama.
The extinction
"could take about a week
," firefighters Eduardo Escobar told Telemetro.
The cloud of smoke, visible from several points in the capital,
"is highly toxic"
and moves with the winds, he said.
"But we can't do anything about the smoke
," warned the firefighter.
Opened in 1986, the open landfill of Cerro Patacon receives more than half of the garbage of the whole country.
Hundreds of people roam it every day, looking for metals or glass to resell, and a slum is nearby.
“Among the various hypotheses which must be the subject of the investigation is the presence of criminal hands”
, affirmed in a press release the landfill concessionaire, the company Urbalia.