India's capital Rises to Dangerous Haze After Diwali

Tuesday brought inhabitants of the world's most polluted city were faced with breathing dangerously toxic air that fell into the "alarming" category.

Extremely High Pollution Readings

Several parts of Delhi recorded an pollution measurement above 500, which equals 10x the recommended threshold recommended by the WHO.

Particular areas, levels of PM2.5 and PM10 soared to of 1,800, representing fifteen to twenty times above safe standards.

Fireworks Prohibition and New Changes

For the past four years, the government had enforced a comprehensive restriction on the distribution and bursting of firecrackers during celebrations due to their substantial impact to the dangerous smog that covers the city as the cold season approaches.

Yet earlier this year, the newly elected local administration appealed to the judicial authority to propose a easing of the ban.

Officials advocated for allowing "green crackers" – historically questioned by environmentalists as being only roughly 30 percent lower impact – as a middle ground between "tradition and public health".

Legal Decision and Implementation

To the disappointment of environmental and health advocates, judges agreed to the proposal, stipulating that eco-friendly pyrotechnics could be used during specific time windows throughout the celebrations.

Throughout the festival evening, there was extensive disregard of the time restrictions across the metropolis, with little regulation regarding whether the firecrackers being used were actually the supposedly greener version.

Many air quality sensors throughout the capital recorded pollution peaking around the night hours to extremely hazardous measurements observed during Diwali in at least three years.

Regional Consequences

The widespread use of pyrotechnics during the celebrations also sparked a blame game with adjacent Pakistan, with authorities in Pakistan's Punjab province partly blaming worsening pollution levels in their urban centers on hazardous particles traveling from neighboring India following the events.

Chronic Environmental Crisis

Extremely elevated levels of air contamination in the capital have remained as a major problem for over a decade and a half, with the situation continuing to worsen.

Around Diwali, the levels of toxic airborne contaminants in the air has been observed to shoot up to significantly exceeding the most severe readings ever measured in Beijing, which was previously regarded as the globally most contaminated city.

Multiple Contamination Factors

This crisis in the city is resulting from a mix of different contributors including heavy vehicle emissions, airborne particles, development work, waste incineration and haze from agricultural fires in adjacent states of farming communities.

In these regions, rural residents illegally burn crop residue to clear them quickly, generating hazardous smog that becomes contained over the city as cooler air arrives.

Public Health and Economic Consequences

Both financial and medical impact on the approximately 33 million residents calling home the Delhi area is enormous, according to numerous research.

This pollution leads to increased incidence of neurological, heart and circulatory and breathing conditions, and can even lead to malignancies.

Environmental contamination is calculated to be responsible for ten thousand early deaths per year in the city.