Trash piled up near Kikolo market in Luanda. Photo sent by an Observer.

Since mid-2015, mountains of rubbish have piled up across the city, home to some 6.5 million residents. With the city teetering on the verge of a health catastrophe, Angola's government has appointed a new governor in Luanda province, Higino Carneiro, to oversee the process of cleaning up the city's streets. One of his first moves was to announce the creation of an ‘urban command post' to fight the trash crisis. He also warned that if the situation worsens, he may be forced to declare a 'sanitary catastrophe' in the city.But for our Observer Adriano, a young resident of the capital, it's already too late. He's a member of ' Luanda Sem Lixo ' [Editor's note: ‘Luanda without trash’], an NGO that spreads public awareness about the risks posed by the garbage. He says that the situation became catastrophic well before the governor's announcement.