Delhi’s air pollution woes continue: A Thick Haze Cloaks the Sky
The Commission for Air Quality Management affected stage 3 of the Delhi city response action plan as part of the enhanced anti-pollution curbs on Thursday. The thick haze continued in Delhi on Friday as the air quality got worse a day after it was tipped into the severe category. This is the first time this season, and the prompted mitigation is implementing a ban on the usage of older vehicles because it will release more polluted smoke from the vehicles. The 464 severe air quality index (AQI) was recorded at 8 a.m. today.
Mundaka and Bawana almost touched the top of the AQI limit at 498 and 496 at 7:05 a.m. today. Except for Dilshad Garden, recorded at 367 AQI, many stations are recorded in the severe category. Greater Noida had an AQI of 473, while Faridabad had an AQI of 442. “This is the lowest visibility for the day. No considerable change is expected later during the day either, as wind speeds are unlikely to be beyond five km per hour,” said an official of the India Metrological Department.
The rapid deterioration in air quality and the fog plunged visibility to 600 m at the Safdarjung and 500 m at Palam. The worst of the air pollution levels led to the closure of the schools for students from classes 5 and below for two days on Friday and Saturday. Delhi recorded an average AQI of 392 at 4 p.m. on Thursday, and it reached the average AQI of 427 before midnight. Mundka has recorded an average AQI of 453, and Anand Vihar’s average AQI of 449 is at the top of all stations. Greater Noida is at worst 402 AQI across the National Capital Region. In Gurguram and Ghaziabad, the poor category is at 297 AQI, and the AQI is at 286.
The Delhi AQI was very poor on Wednesday; it was 362 before the calm surface-level winds exacerbated the impact of the local sources of pollution. Air pollution in Delhi is largely due to the pollutants in the city, and the farm fires in Punjab and Haryana continued to tick up and raise the PM2.5 levels. The capital was experiencing worse smoke from the farm fires in Delhi from Punjab and Haryana, which recorded 1,543 farm fires on Wednesday.
Two states recorded 1,556 farm fires on Tuesday and nearly 827 blazes that satellites tracked a week ago. The two states recorded 1,978 fires on November 1 last year, 2,477 in 2021, and 3,500 in 2020. PM2.5, a byproduct of combustion sources, was the most prominent pollutant in the Delhi air on Thursday. PM2.5 and PM10 were over four times India’s safe standards. India’s pollution standards are less stringent than global thresholds. The Indian safe standard for PM2.5 The thick haze continued in Delhi on Friday as the air quality got worse a day after it was tipped into the severe category. This is the first time this season, and the prompted mitigation is implementing a ban on the usage of older vehicles because it will release more polluted smoke from the vehicles.
Also Read: Hezbollah Leader Nasrallah to ‘break silence’ on Israel-Hamas War
Be the first to comment