LAHORE: The provincial capital Lahore witnessed severely hazardous air quality index (AQI) level of 1067 on Saturday morning that which later improved to 702 mark.
Lahore stands at the top in world hazardous air quality list and India’s Kolkata stands second with 253 AQI mark, Delhi, 238, Mumbai 199 and Tashkent in Uzbekistan with 181 reading much behind.
The residents of Lahore toiling in polluted air have to face serious health issues including respiratory problems, coughing and burning eyes.
It should be mentioned here that the AQI level between 151-200 was considered to be unhealth, AQI level between 201-300 as harmful and AQI above 300 was termed as extremely dangrous.
Lahore had the worst air quality of 1,067 at 9:30 in the morning Swiss air quality watchdog’s real-time list of most polluted cities in the world, despite provincial government’s desperate attempts to fight off smog.
Air pollution level goes upward in the city on the onset of winter, change in the wind speed, wind direction and sliding minimum temperature increases air pollution.
During winter, the air becomes heavier and traps poisonous particles in the atmosphere to downward and making the atmosphere polluted. As a result, a layer of polluted particles, including large amounts of carbon and smoke, covers an area.
Smoke generated by burning crop remnants, factories and burning coal, garbage, oil or tyres enters in the atmosphere and the impact of it appears at the onset of winter and remain till the season’s end. Thus, air pollution reaches to extremely dangerous levels, severely compromising the air quality.
