The foul smell coming from a Thane creek subsided after a few hours in the morning but it left many feeling unwell.
Residents in Maharashtra’s Thane district’s Kopri area woke up to a foul smell, which spread to a radius of three kilometres around 6am on Wednesday morning. The odour was traced to the creek in Chendani Koliwada. Thane Municipal Corporation’s Pollution Control Board collected samples of the creek water after receiving complaints of uneasiness in stomach and headache due to the odour.
Manisha Pradhan, pollution control officer of the municipality said the collected water samples had been sent to the laboratory for testing. “It will take a few days for the reports to arrive. Meanwhile, we also visited Patni Knowledge Park in Airoli and a similar stench was noted there. As the Kopri creek is closer towards Navi Mumbai, we had a doubt that the source could be there and hence informed the officers at Navi Mumbai as well.”
While the smell subsided within a few hours, it left many feeling unwell. “The foul odour woke me up around 7am on Wednesday, even while cooking we could smell it, the stench was so strong. I started getting a headache because of the same. Some of my neighbours also complained of uneasiness in their stomach,” said Charu Sinkar, a resident of Chendani Koliwada in the vicinity.
In a similar instance a few months back, the source of the foul smell was traced to a plant in Navi Mumbai along the creek. Officials said there were no other chemical or industrial units adjacent to the Kopri creek within Thane city that could pollute the river.