Fire fighters in South Korea have been doing battle for three months with piles of rubbish that keep bursting into flames, but the fires keep flaring up. Some 170,000 tonnes of garbage has been dumped among the rice paddies of Uiseong county, along the Nakdong river in the east of the country, according to CNN. It is so putrid it is starting to decompose, spontaneously combust and emit foul fumes.

South Korea is drowning under 1.3 million tonnes of illegally abandoned waste, as Asia’s fourth largest economy struggles to dispose of a build-up of toxic trash that is posing public health risks and polluting farmland.

South Korea is drowning under 1.3 million tonnes of illegally abandoned waste, as Asia’s fourth largest economy struggles to dispose of a build-up of toxic trash that is posing public health risks and polluting farmland.

Park Hyun-soon, an aubergine farmer told the news channel that not only were residents complaining of headaches, but that ash was falling on her greenhouses, blocking the light and ruining her crop.

“The aubergine are growing gnarled,” she said.

“We almost never open our windows. When we leave the house, we don’t smell the nature but the burning (garbage).”