Lahore: The provincial capital of Lahore was spotted as the most polluted city in the world with hazardous levels of air quality.
The air quality level of Lahore is continuously falling to hazardous levels. On Monday, the worst air quality was noted in the wee hours when the AQI US was 438, according to the iqair.com, which monitors the air quality across the world. At the time of filing this report, the air quality index of Lahore was hazardous 303. It should be noted that the air is safe to breath in only if the AQI US is up to 50.
Individual areas of Lahore fared worse, with air quality near the Lahore Grammar School was 401 on the AQI US in real time (8pm) and Pakistan Engineering Services (Private) 366, CERP office 349, Syed Maratab Ali Road 340, DHA Phase-II 329 and Chatha Park 328.
The Environment Protection Department (EPD) own data, shared online, showed the worse air quality of Lahore at 309.
AQI reaches hazardous 438; smoke from vehicles, industry, fields and constructions among main reasons
According to iqair.com, “air pollution in Lahore is caused by a combination of vehicle and industrial emissions, smoke from brick kilns, the burning of crop residue, general waste and dust from construction sites. Other factors of air pollution include large scale losses of trees to build new roads and buildings. Winter air pollution is worse due to temperature inversion, which results in a layer of warm air that is prevented from rising trapping air pollutants.”
In the AQI ranking of world cities, Lahore (in real time) was followed by Delhi, Nur Sultan (Kazakhstan), Dubai and Dhaka.
In 2018, Lahore was ranked 10 in IQAir AirVisual’s 2018 World Air Quality Report.
Overall, Pakistan air pollution caused the country to be ranked as the second most polluted in the world with an annual PM2.5 average of 74.3 µg/m³.
Mr Sumbal claimed that the smog situation was comparatively better than last year but a lot of work needed to be done to control environmental pollution.
