Foam floats down with rain near Chanda mine, power plant; greens blame high pollution

Chandrapur: Atmospheric pollution at the higher level during dense cloudy conditions triggered a weird phenomenon of foam pouring down along with rain near Durgapur opencast mine, on the outskirts of the city on Tuesday afternoon, said experts.

There was panic for some time among the people as they had never witnessed such a weird phenomenon. Flakes of foam continued to pour down with rain for nearly an hour. Environment experts have blamed excessive emission of pollutants from the stacks of Chandrapur Super Thermal Power Station (CSTPS) for the foam downpour, and have formally lodged a complaint with the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) here.

Dark clouds loomed over the city and around since early in the morning on Tuesday, and it started raining heavily at around 10am. Many workers in WCL Durgapur mine, located around 4km north of the city, and commuters along Durgapur road witnessed the weird phenomenon of foam flakes floating down with rain at around 2pm.

Thousands of balls of foam came floating down like parachutes in the rain. The downpour of foam continued for around an hour, till the rain lasted. The bubbles in the foam were so thick that they did not dissipate immediately after touching the ground, but remained intact for several minutes, said a witness.

Environmentalist proffessor Yogeshwar Dudhpachare rushed to the spot on getting information and video recorded the event. “I smelled and tasted the foam. It was oily and salty in taste. We took a sample of foam to the MPCB office and filed a formal complaint about the weird phenomenon,” he said.

He claimed CSTPS is just two kilometers from the place and it is likely that emission from its stack might have triggered the weird phenomenon.

Professor Dr Sachin Wazalwar claimed that the phenomenon might have occurred due to surfactant effect of chemicals mixing with the clouds. The chemicals released due to incomplete combustion or recombination of gases may also cause the surfactant effect, leading to the downpour of foam from clouds.

Surfactant effect or micelle formation may be caused due to many factors which are released through industrial stacks. It is unlikely anything else from the surface would have gone to such heights to mix with clouds, he said.

Regional officer, MPCB Chandrapur, Ashok Kare claimed that a team of two field officers and a scientist has been rushed to the spot to collect sample foam for chemical analysis. Proper investigations would be carried out into the odd phenomenon and its cause, he said.