Every year, farmers in the adjacent states of Punjab and Haryana burn more than 30 million tons of straw. With thousands of hectares ablaze, you can see the smoke fields from space. But for residents of Delhi, they can’t see anything through the smoke.
This smoke spreads across Northern India and parts of Pakistan; by the time it reaches the nation’s capital it combines with construction dust, the emission of over 10 million vehicles and industrial emissions.
Delhi is now the most polluted city on earth, with nearly three times the pollution of the highest criteria under the Air Quality Index (AQI). This year’s annual smokescreen has been declared a public medical emergency, with trains stopped, schools shut and countless Delhiites fearing for their lives behind air masks. Breathing in the Delhi air is akin to smoking 50 cigarettes. And under current weather patterns, this situation will not reduce until the weekend.
The situation in Delhi is almost a mockery of the safe limits prescribed for breathing in the particulate or toxic matter. To know these limits, most outlets turn to the U.S. Embassy’s own online monitor, displaying a real-time AQI. Colour-coded by region, you’d be hard-pressed to find any measure that is not ‘hazardous’ in Delhi now.
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