Pollution is ‘killing us’: India’s capital can’t breathe | world and science

The new city of Dili has recorded alarming rates of air pollutionFrance Press agency

Posted on 11/20/2021 4:02 PM

New Delhi – For 30 years, he’s been riding motorcycle taxi through the streets of New Delhi, one of the most polluted cities in the world. Bhanjan Lal is coughing nonstop and suffers from a chronic lung disease attributed to the toxic air in the Indian capital.

“Pollution is causing me a lot of problems (especially) in my throat,” Bhanjan Lal comments as he rides his taxi.

Lal walks through New Delhi’s busy traffic every day, even in winter, when pollution is at its highest and the city of 20 million people is shrouded in thick, toxic fog.

“I don’t know where the solution to this pollution that is killing us will come from,” said Vijay Satokar in turn. To this resident of the capital, New Delhi looks like a “gas chamber”.

The Indian capital usually tops the global rankings of the capitals with the worst air quality.

Last week, levels of PM2.5 – less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter and particularly harmful to health – reached more than 30 times the daily maximum set by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Emissions from factories and automobile gases and smoke from farm fires in neighboring states form a yellowish haze.

Some of the measures the authorities have taken to contain the pollution, such as a campaign that suggests drivers turn off the engine at traffic lights, have had no effect.