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Mumbai overtakes Delhi as city with the filthiest air in India

By Pratap Chakravarty - RFI
India  AFP - PUNIT PARANJPE
DEC 18, 2022 LISTEN
© AFP - PUNIT PARANJPE

Pollution in India's second city Mumbai was worse this week than even the notoriously smoggy capital, Delhi, as experts warned that hazardous air pollution was likely to affect more parts of the country in future.

Air quality in Mumbai was murky on Tuesday and fell to “poor” on a national weather meter. In comparison, the pollution charts moved Delhi's index to “moderate” the same day.

At the start of the week, the Air Quality Index or AQI stood at 321 in places in Mumbai, India's financial hub and one of the world's most congested cities.

The numbers were well over Delhi's air pollution levels – a shock, since coastal Mumbai typically has better air quality than the inland capital.

“It has become difficult for the residents to breathe in the polluted air,” the Mumbai edition of India Today declared on Tuesday, as experts warned a health emergency loomed for the city of over 20 million residents.

An AQI between 201 and 300 is deemed “poor”, while 301-400 is “very poor”. Anything above 500 is considered unsafe to human life.

India's air quality and weather forecasting agency, SAFAR, blamed an unusual cloud formation over Mumbai and neighbouring city Pune.

“Air quality in Mumbai is currently really bad. Visibility is down. Smog is evident,” state opposition politician Aaditya Thackeray said, lashing out at authorities in Mumbai, home to many of India's billionaires.

Smog over G20

Mumbai sprung into action to clear up the skies as delegates from G20 group of countries began pouring into the city, which this week hosted its first meeting since India took over the G20 presidency on 1 December.

“We have stopped transporting garbage or debris from construction sites for ten days to fight this spike in AQI,” a municipal spokesman told RFI.

“India has assumed the G20 presidency so we must put our best foot forward here in Mumbai,” added a municipal foreman, as an army of workers washed boulevards and busily repainted street signs.

The G20, which includes France, China, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States, has vowed to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 Celsius.

In a tweet, former municipal councillor Asif Zakaria thanked the summit for galvanising Mumbai into action to try and clean up the city. 

Yet doctors say the efforts did little or perhaps nothing to improve air quality.

Weather patterns

Prominent environmentalist Anjal Prakash blamed Mumbai's AQI spike on El Niño–Southern Oscillation, a recurring climate pattern tied to temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific region.

“Mumbai's case actually shows that air pollution is no longer an issue confined to northern India or Delhi, as we see this expanding to other areas and that means that health advisories may have to be extended,” Prakash said.

“On the bright side is that owing to cyclones in Bay of Bengal, the air quality index is likely to improve,” he said.

In Delhi, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal rejected allegations of environmental neglect by his government.

Delhi's AQI stood in the “severe” category for several days in November largely because of unsupervised burning of farm waste in Delhi's three adjoining states, a winter ritual clearly visible by weather satellite.

However, India's Central Pollution Control Board conceded Delhi was colder but “cleaner” than previous years, when AQI has been known to go off the charts.

Delhi's AQI dropped to 177 on Wednesday – giving it the best air millions in the city have smelled in 12 years.

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