🔗 Share this article

On Tuesday morning residents of the world's most polluted city encountered breathing extremely polluted air that was classified as the "severe" level.

Extremely High Air Quality Levels

Multiple areas of Delhi recorded an AQI above 500, which equals 10x the healthy level recommended by the World Health Organization.

Particular areas, levels of dangerous airborne particles reached peaks of eighteen hundred, equating to 15 to 20 times above healthy standards.

Firecracker Prohibition and New Changes

Since 2020, the government had implemented a comprehensive restriction on the sale and use of firecrackers during the Festival of Lights due to their major role to the dangerous pollution that blankets the capital as winter begins.

Nevertheless earlier this year, the current city administration approached the supreme court to propose a easing of the prohibition.

They proposed allowing "eco-friendly fireworks" – previously doubted by environmental experts as being only about 30% less polluting – as a middle ground between "tradition and ecological concerns".

Judicial Ruling and Reality

To the disappointment of medical and ecological activists, judges agreed to the appeal, specifying that environmentally conscious fireworks could be ignited during limited hours throughout the festival.

On Monday night, there was considerable violation of the time restrictions across the city, with little monitoring regarding whether the firecrackers being used were actually the supposedly greener version.

Many recording stations throughout Delhi showed air quality spiking around the night hours to some of the worst readings seen during the festival in at least three years.

Cross-Border Effects

The proliferation of fireworks during the festival also sparked a blame game with bordering Pakistan, with officials in Pakistani Punjab province partially attributing deteriorating pollution levels in Lahore on pollutants traveling from neighboring India following the festivities.

Persistent Pollution Crisis

The dangerously high readings of atmospheric toxins in the city have remained as a significant problem for more than 15 years, with the condition showing no improvement.

Around Diwali, the amount of dangerous particles in the atmosphere has been observed to spike to seventy percent above the most severe readings ever recorded in China's capital, which was formerly regarded as the planet's dirtiest metropolis.

Diverse Pollution Contributors

This crisis in the city is resulting from a convergence of different contributors including automobile exhaust, dust, development work, garbage fires and haze from agricultural fires in nearby areas of neighboring agricultural zones.

Within these states, agricultural workers regularly burn crop residue to clear them quickly, creating dangerous pollution that becomes contained over the capital as colder air sets in.

Medical and Financial Consequences

The economic and health consequences on the approximately 33 million inhabitants calling home the capital region is significant, according to numerous studies.

The contaminated air leads to high levels of neurological, heart and circulatory and breathing diseases, and can potentially cause oncological diseases.

Environmental contamination is calculated to be accounting for approximately 10k early deaths annually in the city.