By: Floro Mercene
India’s capital city New Dehli was enveloped by toxic smog last month, forcing the Indian Medical Association to declare a public health emergency, advising citizens to stay indoors, and for all schools to be shut. The city implemented a total ban on trucks entering the capital and temporarily suspended all civil construction projects.
Pollution is nothing new to the 18 plus million residents living in the city. Every winter, pollution levels in Delhi and its neighboring cities rise to hazardous levels. Politicians and officials blame farmers in neighboring northern Indian states who clear their fields by burning their crops. The landlocked capital sits in a natural bowl and is surrounded by industrial and agricultural hubs. Without the coastal breeze of cities such as Mumbai and Chennai, much of the pollution settles.
In addition to crop burning, Delhi’s pollution comes from industrial emissions, vehicle exhaust from cars, road dust and burning of biomass. The number of cars on the city’s roads has continued to rise. According to government statistics, the total number of vehicles in Delhi exceeded 10 million for the first time in 2016.
Air quality readings in India’s capital have soared, with one monitor showing levels in the city were 969 – the World Health Organization considers anything above 25 to be unsafe. Those levels are based on the concentration of the particulate matter, or PM 2.5, per cubic meter. The microscopic particles, which are smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter are considered particularly harmful because they are small enough to lodge deep into the lungs and pass into other organs, causing serious health risks.
Sustained exposure to high levels of PM 2.5 can cause respiratory diseases like bronchitis, asthma and inflammation of the lungs, and even heart attacks and strokes.