🔗 Share this article

Tuesday brought inhabitants of the planet's dirtiest urban center were faced with inhaling extremely polluted air that registered in the "alarming" range.

Extremely High Pollution Readings

Multiple areas of the capital registered an pollution measurement exceeding 500, which represents 10x the safe level set by the WHO.

Particular areas, readings of PM2.5 and PM10 soared to of 1,800, equating to fifteen to twenty times above safe standards.

Firecracker Prohibition and Recent Developments

For the past four years, officials had enforced a complete ban on the distribution and bursting of firecrackers during the Festival of Lights due to their significant contribution to the dangerous haze that blankets the city as colder weather sets in.

Yet in recent months, the newly elected local administration appealed to the highest court to request a easing of the ban.

They proposed allowing "green crackers" – historically questioned by environmentalists as being only approximately one-third lower impact – as a balance between "tradition and public health".

Court Verdict and Reality

Despite concerns of medical and ecological activists, the court approved the appeal, mandating that environmentally conscious fireworks could be set off during designated time windows throughout the Diwali.

On Monday night, there was widespread disregard of the regulated periods across the city, with little regulation regarding whether the fireworks being used were actually the supposedly greener variety.

Numerous monitoring devices throughout Delhi registered pollution spiking around midnight to extremely hazardous levels seen during the festival in at least recent memory.

Regional Implications

The widespread use of firecrackers during the festival also sparked a blame game with adjacent the neighboring country, with officials in Pakistani the Punjab region partly blaming declining pollution levels in their urban centers on contaminants originating in across the border following the festivities.

Persistent Pollution Issue

Extremely elevated levels of air contamination in Delhi have remained as a significant challenge for fifteen-plus years, with the problem gradually deteriorating.

During Diwali, the concentration of hazardous particulate matter in the atmosphere has been documented to increase dramatically to 70% higher the peak levels ever measured in the Chinese city, which was previously viewed as the globally most contaminated city.

Various Contamination Contributors

The problem in Delhi is attributed to a combination of different contributors including transportation pollution, construction debris, building projects, rubbish burning and pollutants from farm burning in neighbouring states of farming communities.

Throughout these areas, agricultural workers routinely set their fields on fire to expedite field preparation, producing dangerous haze that then gets trapped over the capital as cooler air sets in.

Medical and Financial Toll

The economic and health impact on the approximately 33 million people calling home the Delhi area is substantial, according to numerous investigations.

The contaminated air results in elevated rates of neurological, cardiovascular and lung diseases, and can potentially cause oncological diseases.

Environmental contamination is estimated to be causing ten thousand premature deaths annually in Delhi.