Updated: November 15, 2020 11:29:27 am
A thick layer of smog engulfed several areas of Delhi in the morning, reducing visibility.
Air quality in the national capital deteriorated to the “severe” category one day after Diwali on Sunday, with the Air Quality Index (AQI) in the ITO and Anand Vihar area recorded as 461 and 478 respectively, according to the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC). ) data. The neighboring cities of Faridabad (438), Ghaziabad (483), Greater Noida (439), Gurgaon (424) and Noida (466) also recorded their AQI in the severe category.
A thick layer of smog engulfed several areas of Delhi in the morning, reducing visibility. An improvement in air quality is expected from the second half of Sunday, with light rains throughout the capital. The wind direction is expected to shift to the southeast, reducing the impact of agricultural fires on Delhi’s air.
#CLOCK I Delhi: smog engulfs parts of the national capital, reducing visibility; images of the Geeta colony pic.twitter.com/MHmmMqX0L7
– ANI (@ANI) November 15, 2020
The AQI for the PM 2.5 pollutant stood at 460 in Pusa, 475 in Patparganj, 450 in Lodhi Road, 491 in Ashok Vihar, 500 in Jahangirpuri and 442 in the IGI airport area. An AQI between 101 and 200 is considered moderate, 201-300 ‘poor’, 301- 400 ‘very poor’ and 401-500 ‘severe’, while the AQI above 500 falls into the severe plus category.
With many Delhiites ignoring the city’s crackers ban, on Saturday night the AQI recorded as 414, the worst AQI in the city since 2016 on Diwali. On Friday, it dropped to 339, in the ‘very poor’ category.
Fire crackers in Sahibabad in Uttar Pradesh on Diwali (Express photo by Praveen Khanna)
The city posted a 24-hour average AQI of 337 on Diwali last year (October 27), and 368 and 400 on the next two days. Thereafter, the contamination levels remained in the “severe” category for three days in a row.
The proportion of stubble burning in PM 2.5 also increased from 14 percent on Friday to 32 percent on Saturday due to transport-level northwesterly winds with adequate speed, SAFAR said.
Fire crackers in Sahibabad in Uttar Pradesh on Diwali. With many Delhiites ignoring the city’s crackers ban, on Saturday night the AQI was recorded as 414
Isolated to scattered rains under the influence of a new western disturbance are also expected on November 15. These factors will go a long way to eliminating the impact of any additional locally generated emissions and biomass-related impacts to make the AQI on the lower end of very poor by November 16, ”said SAFAR’s official forecast.
The National Green Court (NGT) had imposed on Monday a total ban on the sale or use of all types of firecrackers in the National Capital Region (NCR) from midnight November 9 to midnight November 30, saying that “the celebration for cookies is for happiness and not for the celebration of deaths and illnesses.”
The Central Pollution Control Board has asked all the State Pollution Control Boards (SPCB), the Pollution Control Committees and the Regional Directorates of the CPCB to carry out monitoring of ambient air quality in two or three locations for seven days after Diwali to study the impact of pollutants.
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