Residents of India’s capital New Delhi choked in a blanketing toxic smog Wednesday as worsening air pollution surged past 50 times the World Health Organization’s recommended daily maximum.
Cooler temperatures and slow-moving winds trap deadly pollutants.
At dawn on Wednesday, “hazardous” pollutant levels in parts of the sprawling urban area of more than 30 million people topped 806 micrograms per cubic metre, according to monitoring firm IQAir.
That is more than 53 times the World Health Organization recommended daily maximum of fine particulate matter — dangerous cancer-causing microparticles known as PM2.5 pollutants that enter the bloodstream through the lungs.
Many in the city cannot afford air filters, nor do they have homes they can effectively seal from the foul smelling air.
The city is blanketed in acrid smog each year, primarily blamed on stubble burning by farmers in neighbouring regions to clear their fields for ploughing, as well as factories and traffic fumes.
But a report by The New York Times this month, based on air and soil samples it collected over a five-year period, revealed the dangerous fumes also spewing from a power plant incinerating the city’s landfill garbage mountains.
Experts the newspaper spoke to said that the levels of heavy metals found were “alarming”.
Meanwhile, on the streets of Pakistan’s second biggest city Lahore, smog stings eyes and burns throats. Inside homes, few people can afford air purifiers to limit the damage of toxic particles that seep through doors and windows.
Lahore — a city of 14 million people stuffed with factories on the border with India — regularly ranks among the world’s most polluted cities, but it has hit record levels this month.
Schools have closed in the main cities of Punjab province, of which Lahore is the capital, until November 17 in a bid to lower children’s exposure to the pollution, especially during the morning commute when it is often at its highest.
According to the international Air Quality Index Scale, an index value of 300 or higher results is “hazardous” to health and Pakistan has regularly tipped over 1,000 on the scale.
In Multan, another city of several million people some 350 kilometres away, the AQI level passed 2,000 — a staggering height never seen before by incredulous residents.
