How govt's lackadaisical policy created mountains of garbage in Delhi-NCR

In the last two decades, Delhi's population has quickly risen to about 19 million from about 12 million and infrastructure and governments services have not kept pace.

Huddled in a stinky, airless room near the center of India’s capital, Rammurti fumed over the 17-story-high mountain of trash half a mile from her home.

The 43-year-old mother, who goes by one name, had watched the garbage in her village of Ghazipur pile higher and higher over the years. It wafted a sickening cocktail of airborne particles that infected her neighbors with tuberculosis and dengue fever, singed trees and turned the ground water a filmy yellow.

But nothing had prepared her for one afternoon last September when a tower of trash broke away from the mass during monsoon rains. It crashed