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Delhi reels as summer smog catches Indian capital off guard
NEW DELHI, June 14, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Air pollution soared in New Delhi on
Thursday to hazardous levels rarely seen outside winter months as sand blown
from deserts enveloped the Indian capital in a once-in-a-decade phenomenon.
Doctors warned the grit carried by hot summer winds posed serious health
risks to the city of 20 million and there was little to do “but pray for
rain”.’
Smog spikes during winter in Delhi, already one of the world’s most
polluted cities, where air quality eclipses the World Health Organization’s
safe levels on any given day.
Pollution levels usually ease in summer, providing some relief from the
smog as temperatures soar to mid-40 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit).
But the city woke up to stifling heat and smog 20 times safe levels
Thursday, as strong winds blew dust from deserts in western India and beyond
across the plains where Delhi lies.
“It is a very unusual phenomenon seen once in a decade or so. The dust is
not settling down and the sky is obscure,” said Mahesh Palawat, vice
president of meteorology and climate change at SkyMet Weather, a private
forecaster.
“It is quite different from winter pollution. It is the dust this time that
is the culprit. It may cause breathing problems to many,” he told AFP.
Levels of PM10 — dust and larger particles with a diameter of 10
micrometres — exceeded 900 per cubic metre in parts of Delhi on Thursday,
according to the US embassy website. The WHO considers 50 the maximum safe
level for PM10.
Readings from India’s own pollution monitor on Thursday detected PM10
closer to 1,300 — or 26 times safe exposure levels.
Summer winds have been especially violent this season, experts say, with
hundreds killed by powerful dust storms and freak winds across India’s north.
The sand blowing into the capital is colliding with dust from open
construction sites and car and factory exhaust, compounding the crisis.
Usually during winter, smog chokes Delhi as cool air traps pollutants close
to the ground.
During these months it is PM2.5 — microscopic particles that can lodge
deep into the lungs — that cause the most harm.
Ozone levels, usually a lesser concern given the magnitude of air pollution
woes in Delhi, are also causing particular grief this summer, according to a
recent report by the Centre for Science and Environment.
“The surprise this year is the number of days when the daily air quality
index has shown ozone also as a dominant pollutant along with the particulate
matter,” said the centre’s executive director Anumita Roychowdhury.
Arvind Kumar, a lung surgeon at a medical facility in New Delhi, said the
smog threatened all, but children, the elderly and those with asthma were at
particular risk.
“If such a situation was seen in the western world, cities would have been
evacuated but for us we just need to pray for rain and the dust to settle
down,” he told AFP.
BSS/AFP/ARS/1822 hrs