Are we breathing poisonous air? Air quality index shows the air we are breathing has reached a strikingly unhealthy level of 192 AQI, on an average, in Delhi. Air pollution in Delhi crossed the permissible limit by 12 times in case of particulate matter levels, crossing 700 micrograms per cubic meter.
Air pollution levels in Delhi got to a roaring high choking its citizens for the illegal burning of paddy stacks in the farms of Punjab and Harayana. Not very long ago, World Health Organisation (WHO) declared that Delhi has left behind Beijing, attaining the crown of the most polluted city in the world.
Air pollution is the one of the fatal issues that has been dwindling in the corner somewhere without making much noise around. If not for the aggressive rise of pollutants and particulate matters in the air, our indifference to the lethal damages it can cause to our health, is something sure to be worried about in these smoggy times. The levels directly result in diseases like stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, and both chronic and acute respiratory diseases, including asthma.
Picture Courtesy: Indian Express
Respiratory diseases, allergies burning in the eyes, these recent symptoms are not just symptoms of the season change. Delhi air quality has dropped to a lethal level with the rise of shockingly damaging air pollution altitudes since last Tuesday. The plight of air pollution in Delhi reached another level when on Saturday, people who had gone out of their houses experienced severe smog and complained about eyes stinging, coughing, and choking. Delhi saw an alarming level of PM2.5 particulate matters (fine pollutants available in the air) that reached 750 micrograms per cubic metres — 12 times the safety range for the pollutant in India and 30 times the World Health Organization’s global safety benchmark.
At Anand Vihar air pollution achieved its new peak for a few hours around noon on Saturday. Notwithstanding the paddy burning, the average measured level of PM 2.5 particulate matters in that area stays around 350-450 micrograms per cubic metres, which is way beyond the Indian safe level of 60 microgram per cubic metre. And the other toxic regime in the capital marked RK Puram and Mandir Marg with the astounding PM2.5 levels drifting from 250 to 450 micrograms per cubic metre.
The levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) were measured between 200 to 250 micrograms per cubic metres at RK Puram and 100-150 micrograms per cubic metre at Anand Vihar and Mandir Marg against the safe limit of 80 micrograms per cubic metre.
With the celebration of fire-crackers taking off and Diwali round the corner it’s only going to be worse. The entire capital region, no matter how environmentally aware and cautious they are, are all set to put fire in the long thread of ‘ladi’s. On November 2, the three children aged between 6 and 14 months have raised a PIL against firecrackers in Delhi with their parents. It rang a bell, but wasn’t enough to shake us. Even after making a history of sorts, being the youngest litigants ever to approach the highest judicial authority, the results were predictable enough.
A complete ban on firecrackers specially during the occasions like Diwali, in India, is simply not POSSIBLE. And to add to the misery of the lungs there is this smoke epidemic already capturing the capital to death. State authorities of Punjab and Haryana have issued mandates to stop the environmental plague of air pollution. But what has been said is not yet heard and paddy straws are still burning in the fields brewing a cluster of poisonous air to engulf the entire capital with the claim that the alternatives are not yet be provided to the farmers!
It’s only now, that Delhi government has merely initiated the process with the government of Punjab and Haryana to address the issue of air pollution, we can only hope for better air!
Picture Courtesy: Livemint
As world health organization acclaims, outdoor air pollution is causing more than 3 million premature deaths, worldwide, every year! “Some 88% of those premature deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries, and the greatest number in the WHO Western Pacific and South-East Asia regions.”
Among those cities which have reached the air pollution levels to a hazardous extend by the WHO standards, Delhi has topped the chart!
It’s time now, for us, to worry! If we do not understand the consequences of breathing in poison, and approach the issue of air pollution, it will be too late for our lungs.
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