Throughout neighborhoods of Santo Domingo, black ash fell yesterday afternoon due to fires that consumed sugar cane fields east of the city. Clouds of acrid smoke forced the suspension of classes in some schools in SD’s eastern sectors of Sabana Perdida, Los Mina, Ambar, and Ozama, while housewife’s rushed to remove freshly laundered clothes from clotheslines. The fire was extinguished late yesterday thanks to the efforts of four fire companies. On the capital’s eastern fringe, in the sector known as El Almirante, "a sea of smoke" brought transit to a halt. Newspapers, radio stations and the Office of Civil Defense were deluged with phone calls from puzzled and frightened citizens who had not as yet been given any official explanation of what one little girl was quoted as describing as "black rain." The damaged cane fields belong to the Ozama Sugar Mill, which was privatized earlier this year.
