Durban - Part of the N3, in the vicinity of the New England Road landfill site had be to closed to traffic on Friday morning as clouds of smoke billowed over the busy highway.
KwaZulu-Natal Emergency Services spokesperson, Robert Mckenzie, said due to the density of the smoke, the highway near site was closed.
He said vehicles were stacked along the busy stretch of road.
Meanwhile, Pietermaritzburg residents will have to live with the smoke coming from the fire at the New England Road landfill site for a few more days, Msunduzi Municipality warned yesterday.
In a statement issued by the administrator, Scelo Duma, the municipality said the fire had been contained.
But he said the site was still smouldering because of the depth of the fire.
“The smoke will linger for the next few days according to the Msunduzi Chief Fire Officer who is in charge of the Incident Command Centre at the landfill,” he said.
The municipality’s technical teams were meeting yesterday to plan a way forward on various elements of the operation, including the possibility of declaring a local state of disaster.
It was not immediately clear what declaring a local state of disaster would mean, said municipal spokesperson Thobeka Mafumbatha, when asked, and said the meeting was still under way.
Duma said the municipality had deployed extensive resources to put out the fire in the landfill. These included six fire engines, five water tankers, one excavator, two bulldozers and 39 firefighters.
A team with an equal number of firefighters was resting in order to relieve the working teams later.
The Mercury