JEDDAH, 12 September 2007 — A 50-year-old Sudanese land surveyor suffered second and third degree burns all over his body after getting stuck in a sinkhole filled with smoldering animal manure where Jeddah’s livestock market used to be located before it was moved out of the city in March.
“I was walking in the area accompanied by a friend who was on his cell phone at the time when I started sinking in the dirt,” said Muhy Al-Deen. “I started to smell my hair burning and I was facing difficulty getting out.”
The doctor who examined Al-Deen told Arab News on Sunday that based on the descriptions given by the patient, he initially diagnosed the cause of the burns as chemical waste.
Civil Defense officials investigated the site and dismissed that it was a toxic waste dump, pointing out that the land was recently being used for a livestock market. The market was relocated in order to develop the land for residential purpose.
Al-Deen, who was surveying the land for real-estate development, said he started screaming to his friend, who helped him out of his fiery predicament. Al-Deen was rushed to Al-Jazeera Hospital where he is still recovering.
The area Al-Deen fell into is located east of the Makkah-Madinah Expressway where the livestock market once stood. However, a number of manufacturing factories are located to the north of the site.
“I don’t know what I fell into but it was slimy and appeared level and dry at first,” said Al-Deen. “There was nothing visibly wrong with the area.”
After moving the livestock market out of the city in March, the old market area was cleaned up and a lot of the waste was set on fire. Residents in neighboring districts have complained of the smoke erupting from the fires.
Organic materials can become dangerously hot through natural oxidization and decay. Burying large amounts of livestock manure can start the chemical process of decay, causing scalding temperatures. The process produces diphosphane gas, which can spontaneously combust.
Fires have been known to break out spontaneously in municipal trash dumps due to pockets of flammable gas forming inside the trash coupled with the high temperatures caused by natural decomposition.
