AsiaNet-Pakistan Premier Editorial Content and Press Release Distribution Service
New Delhi: New Delhi switched schools to online classes today until further notice as worsening toxic smog surged past 60 times the World Health Organization’s recommended daily maximum.
According to Kashmir Media Service, various piecemeal government initiatives have failed to measurably address the problem, with the smog blamed for thousands of premature deaths each year and particularly impacting the health of children and the elderly.
Levels of PM2.5 pollutants, dangerous cancer-causing microparticles that enter the bloodstream through the lungs, peaked at 907 micrograms per cubic metre on Monday morning. A reading above 15 in a 24-hour period is considered unhealthy by the WHO.
“My eyes have been burning for the last few days,” said rickshaw puller Subodh Kumar, 30. “Pollution or no pollution, I have to be on the road, where else will I go?” he said, pausing from eating breakfast at a roadside stall. “We don’t have an option to stay indoors…our livelihood, food, and life – everything is in the open.”
Dense grey and acrid smog smothered the city, with IQAir listing conditions as “hazardous”.
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