In Colombia, Mosquera has been facing an unprecedented wave of pollution for several weeks.
Located a few kilometers from Bogota, the city is now deserted by the majority of its inhabitants, reports
Geo
.
The cause: a thick white foam with a pestilential smell that invades the houses, gardens and roads of the city.
The phenomenon is not new but this year, its magnitude is.
In addition to the smell it gives off, the wave of foam entails a major risk, that of falling into it and getting lost.
🇨🇴 Huge clouds of toxic foam float in the municipality of Mosquera, in the suburbs of Bogota, a phenomenon caused by river pollution
By @jbarreto1974 #AFP pic.twitter.com/Nm1kPGOrLz
— Agence France-Presse (@afpfr) April 30, 2022
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Chemical waste dumped in the river
According to the local environmental authorities, this phenomenon is due to local companies which, for several years, have been dumping their chemical waste into the Balsillas River, without any treatment.
The torrential rains that fell on Mosquera this year worsened a now untenable situation.
A Colombian government official reacted to this unprecedented pollution on a local radio.
He assured that the authorities would now "monitor and clean the whole river in order to prevent the foam from accumulating further".
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