Delhi Becomes World's Most Polluted Major City Ahead of Diwali, IQAir Index at 581
India's capital New Delhi was the world's most polluted major city on Saturday morning, November 7, as air quality worsened a day before Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. Reuters reported that Swiss air-quality group IQAir ranked Delhi first among the world's major cities at 10:35 a.m. local time, with a US air quality index reading of 581, roughly double the reading of 285 for Lahore, Pakistan, in second place.
India's Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) put Delhi's air quality index at 363 at 10 a.m., in the "very poor" category. The two indexes use different scales and methodologies and are not directly comparable. The board's data showed a 24-hour average index of 382 at 4 p.m. on Friday, and local media, citing official data, said Friday's air quality was the worst pre-Diwali air in eight years. On Saturday morning, 18 of the city's 59 monitoring stations recorded air quality in the "severe" category, and the Air Quality Early Warning System forecast the index would reach "severe" later on Saturday.
The Commission for Air Quality Management invoked Stage III of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) across the Delhi-NCR region on November 6. Diwali falls on Sunday, November 8, and India's Supreme Court has allowed certified green crackers in Delhi-NCR only on November 7 and 8, with the full firecracker ban restored from November 9. Delhi Environment Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa warned that weather conditions could worsen further.
Source: Reuters
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
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