Schools were closed after pollution in
India’s capital soared, reaching levels many times the global safe limit.
By
Kai Schultz and Suhasini Raj
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New
Delhi on Friday. Officials declared a health emergency in response to dangerous
air
quality this week. Credit...Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters
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NEW
DELHI — A toxic,
throat-burning cloud has settled over India’s capital, swallowing national
monuments, sending people to emergency rooms and prompting officials on Friday
to declare a public health emergency and close schools for days.
Air quality in parts of New Delhi rose to
levels around 20 times what the World Health Organization considers safe. By
Friday afternoon, officials in the capital region had halted all construction
projects, planned to limit the number of vehicles on roads, urged people to
stay inside and shut several thousand primary schools until Tuesday.
“We are in trouble,” said Dr. G.C. Khilnani,
a pulmonologist in the city.
Every winter, as wind speeds slow and farmers
burn their crops to make room for a new harvest, dirty air settles over India’s
cities, putting hundreds of millions at risk. Adding to it, pollution in New
Delhi got even worse after weekend celebrations of Diwali, the Hindu festival
of light, when families set off fireworks despite government warnings against
it.
India has struggled to get in front of its
pollution crisis. Reports have found that the country’s children may be facing
permanent brain damage from poisonous air and that millions of Indians have
already died from health problems connected to living in polluted cities.
The problem is not confined to the capital. Urban
areas across the country, from Mumbai in the west to Varanasi in the east, are
all struggling with filthy air, lending India the distinction of having 15 of
the world’s 20 most-polluted cities, according to a recent study.
But even as air pollution climbed to
dangerous levels this week, turning the sun a murky white, some businesses in
New Delhi kept their doors open and patrons at higher-end restaurants chose to
sit outside. Face masks were still a rare sight on streets, and many
politicians, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, refrained from publicly
acknowledging the problem.
Jyoti Kumar, 47, the owner of a supermarket
chain in New Delhi, said that many Indians had become fatalistic about the air.
She said that more people were buying air purifiers if they could afford them,
but that collective pressure on politicians to act was still not happening.
“I wish I could shut down my business and
leave this city for good,” she said.
Over the past few years, India’s
environmentalists have warned about the long-term effects of sustained exposure
to air pollution levels that can reach the equivalent of smoking two packs of
cigarettes a day. A recent report found that major causes of pollution in the
capital and surrounding cities, a metropolis of more than 46 million people,
were construction dust, vehicle emissions and burning of agricultural waste.
Dr. Arvind Kumar, a chest surgeon in the
city, said that 90 percent of his lung cancer patients three decades ago were
smokers. Today, he said, the ratio was one to one, with at least 10 percent of
his clients only in their 30s.
“Fifty percent of the patients I operate on
throughout the year are nonsmokers,” he said. “This kind of demographic change
is shocking.”
The Indian government has tried to take
action this year, including enforcing a Supreme Court ban on most types of
fireworks ahead of Diwali and introducing new “green” designs. In October, the
country’s health minister, Harsh Vardhan, said that the eco-friendly fireworks
would “resolve the crisis of air pollution” and slash emissions by 30 percent.
But on Sunday evening, many families still
celebrated the festival by climbing to their rooftops and setting off
firecrackers.
By morning, the city was under a halo of fog.
In parts of the city, levels of the most dangerous air particles, called PM
2.5, eventually climbed to around 600 micrograms per cubic meter, which is
considered hazardous to breathe, according to data provided by the Delhi
Pollution Control Committee. Scientists have linked that kind of air pollution
to increased death rates.
Mohammad Islam, 43, a rickshaw driver who
wore a mask on Friday, said he was worried for his job and his life. In recent
years, he said, he has developed a persistent cough, forcing him to cut four
crucial hours of work from his days.
As the air grew worse this week, Mr. Islam
said he began to wonder how much longer he could last.
“I have started to get shortness of breath, a
suffocation I cannot explain,” he said. “It’s like someone is physically
choking me.”
Hari Kumar contributed reporting.