The city of Nabatieh and a number of surrounding towns were covered in a thick cloud of black smoke laden with unpleasant odors, resulting from deliberate burning in one of the plastic and scrap material collection yards in the Toul region, in an incident that residents indicated was repeated on an almost weekly basis.
The smoke cloud extended to include the towns of Al-Duwair, Al-Sharqiya, Al-Numiriyah, Al-Kfour, Toul, Harouf, Haboush, and Deir Al-Zahrani. This sparked a state of panic and anxiety among citizens, some of whom thought that the area had been subjected to security targeting.
The residents called on civil defense personnel and fire brigades to intervene urgently to put out the fire, warning that the smoke and odors resulting from it caused obvious health problems for the elderly and children.
In the same context, the people sent an urgent appeal to the Minister of Environment, Tamara El-Zein, and the Environmental Public Prosecutor in Nabatieh, in addition to the concerned authorities and security services, calling for immediate intervention to put an end to what they described as a “health and environmental crime,” and to hold those involved accountable.
