Children hospitalised after inhaling toxic smoke

Scores of residents in Jeddah have been rushed to the emergency room for oxygen treatment after suffering smoke poisoning from a garbage dump fire started by rioting illegal immigrants on Friday.

The blaze, which took emergency services 24 hours to extinguish, was started by immigrants protesting a police crackdown on them using the dump to burn off tires and other toxic materials to collect recyclable metals to sell

Residents in close proximity to the blaze at Jeddah’s main garbage dump suffered under the restrictive breathing conditions after winds blew dense black cloud of toxic smoke over their communities.

“I took my 10-year-old asthmatic son to Dr. Ghassan Pharaon Hospital yesterday and the emergency room was mostly filled with children on oxygen,” Ahmad Al-Harthi, a Saudi resident of the Al-Ajwad district, told Saudi daily Arab News.

An official at the nearby hospital said he had seen a noticeable increase in the number of people seeking oxygen treatment in the days during and following the blaze.

Fires in the dump have become an ongoing problem for residents of Jeddah as authorities have been unable to prevent the immigrants, some 1,000 of who live in the dump itself, from starting fires.

Khalid Aqeel, deputy mayor of Jeddah, revealed on Saturday the municipality plans to build a new dump about 15 kilometres outside the city, turning the existing one into a park for residents.

The new city dump, which will cost around 30 million Saudi riyals ($8 million), will cover an area of 4.5 million square kilometres and be surrounded by a protective concrete fence.

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READERS' COMMENTS

POOR PLANNING
Posted by Hussain Motabagani, Khobar, Saudi Arabia on Tuesday 6 November 2007 at 11:00 UAE time


Well not mentioned in your report that a new school was opened very close to the dump, 
also a new shopping center has emerged. 
 
The question... who the heck allowed a school and a commercial center to be erected next to a toxic dump? 
 
the neighborhoods near the dump suffer from traffic congestion that has aided the development of asthma amoung young children in that zone. 
 
I blame the municipalities and town planning divisions for not taking preventive action when the time was ideal for them, as is the case in many KSA towns and cities. 
poor coordination between town planning and ministries such as health and interior ministry traffic divisions is another key factor. 
 
Unless a new planning strategy is devised for future projects you will see alot of this kind of thing happening in teh near future. 
 
and the new proposed dump 15km is a good idea...untill people start building next to that.

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