Delhi declares health emergency over toxic smog

New Delhi: A toxic, throat-burning cloud has settled over India's capital, swallowing national monuments, sending people to emergency rooms and prompting officials to declare a public health emergency and close schools for days.

Air quality in parts of New Delhi rose to levels around 20 times what the World Health Organisation considers safe. By Friday afternoon, officials in the capital region had halted all construction projects, planned to limit the number of vehicles on roads, urged people to stay inside and shut several thousand primary schools until Tuesday.

A man climbs to the top of a Delhi building as the city is enveloped in smog and dust on Friday.Credit:AP

"We are in trouble," said Dr G.C. Khilnani, a pulmonologist in the city.

Every winter, as wind speeds slow and farmers burn their crops to make room for a new harvest, dirty air settles over India's cities, putting hundreds of millions at risk. Adding to it, pollution in New Delhi got even worse after weekend celebrations of Diwali, the Hindu festival of light, when families set off fireworks despite government warnings against it.

India has struggled to get in front of its pollution crisis. Reports have found that the country's children may be facing permanent brain damage from poisonous air and that millions of Indians have already died from health problems connected to living in polluted cities.

The problem is not confined to the capital. Urban areas across the country, from Mumbai in the west to Varanasi in the east, are all struggling with filthy air, lending India the distinction of having 15 of the world's 20 most-polluted cities, according to a recent study.

But even as air pollution climbed to dangerous levels, some businesses in New Delhi kept their doors open, and patrons at higher-end restaurants chose to sit outside. Face masks were still a rare sight on streets, and many politicians, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, refrained from publicly acknowledging the problem.

Over the past few years, India's environmentalists have warned about the long-term effects of sustained exposure to air pollution levels that can reach the equivalent of smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. A recent report found that major causes of pollution in the capital and surrounding cities, a metropolis of more than 46 million people, were construction dust, vehicle emissions and burning of agricultural waste.

The New York Times

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