Toxic smog blanketing Pakistan visible from space
Record-breaking levels of thick, toxic smog that have shrouded eastern Pakistan and northern India since last month can be seen in satellite imagery.
A huge cloud of grey smog blankets Pakistan’s Punjab province and stretches out east into India, over the capital New Delhi and beyond, satellite imagery from NASA Worldview shows.
The pollution has forced authorities in Pakistan to close schools and public spaces as the acrid smog threatens the health of tens of millions of people.
Images from the Pakistani cities of Lahore and Multan this weekend show the dark haze engulfing streets and blocking buildings from view.
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Pollution in the region ramps up each winter, when an ominous yellow haze blankets the skies due to a combination of farmers burning agricultural waste, coal-fired power plants, traffic and windless days. Air quality worsens in the winter because colder and drier air traps pollution, rather than lifting it away, as warm air does when it rises.
Though major South Asian cities suffer from poisonous smog each year, officials in Pakistan’s second biggest city Lahore have characterised this season as unprecedented.
On Monday, the city’s air quality index was above 1,200, a level considered “hazardous,” according to IQAir, which tracks global air quality. A reading above 300 is considered hazardous to a person’s health.
The air quality index in parts of Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province of 127 million people, has exceeded 1,000 multiple times in the past week, according to IQAir.
Hospitals and clinics in Pakistan have become inundated with patients suffering from the effects of pollution, with Punjab health officials saying more than 30,000 people have been treated for respiratory ailments in smog-hit districts.
Pakistan’s Environmental Protection Agency said on Sunday there was “an unprecedented rise in the number of patients with lung and respiratory diseases, allergies, eye and throat irritation” in the districts of Faisalabad, Multan and Gujranwala, where average air quality levels were “alarmingly hazardous.”
Schools and government offices had already been ordered to close until November 17, including in the provincial capital Lahore.
On Friday, Punjab authorities shuttered all parks, playgrounds, museums, zoos and historical sites in 18 districts for ten days.
New restrictions on Monday extended the ban to all outdoor activities including outdoor sports events, exhibitions, festivals, and outdoor dining at restaurants, in four districts including Lahore.
The UN children’s agency, UNICEF, warned that more than 11 million children under the age of five are exposed to smog in the worst-affected districts.
“As smog continues to persist in Punjab province, I am extremely concerned about the well-being of young children who are forced to breathe polluted, toxic air,” UNICEF’s representative in Pakistan Abdullah Fadil said. “Young children are most affected by air pollution because they have smaller lungs and lack the immunities that come with age.”
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