By Staff Reporter
LAHORE: Lahore returned to the top of the world’s most polluted major cities list on Wednesday, with smog thickening over the eastern city as temperatures dropped.
The Swiss monitoring platform IQAir put the city’s air quality index (AQI) at 296 at 10am on 28 October. That was seven points ahead of Cairo on 289 and 24 above Delhi on 272. Tashkent was fourth on 186 and Karachi fifth on 173.
Lahore, Cairo and Delhi all fell into the “very unhealthy” band of the US scale. In Lahore’s case, the reading was just short of the 300 mark that separates that category from “hazardous”. A reading at that level poses health risks, particularly for children, older people and those with respiratory or heart conditions. Residents were advised to limit prolonged outdoor exertion, especially if they have asthma or other breathing problems.
Cold conditions in the early morning left the city under a haze that cut visibility.
Sajid Bashir, a spokesperson for the Environment Protection Agency (EPA), said the authorities were monitoring industries and had installed devices to record pollution levels. He said changing weather was feeding the smog and that steps were being taken to stop stubble burning. Easterly winds, he said, had been pushing polluted air from India’s border regions into Lahore, worsening conditions across central Punjab.
Bashir said the government was buying and installing 30 more modern fog cannons mounted on electric trucks. The Express Tribune reported earlier this year that the provincial government had approved Rs3bn for 30 such cannons. Anti-smog guns were being sent first to areas with higher readings, he said, particularly where levels of PM10 – coarse particulate matter – were elevated. The machinery was also being used to damp down dust on roads and nearby areas.
Bashir also blamed building work. “Development work in Lahore and other cities of the province was also contributing to pollution,” he said. Measures to combat smog were under way, he added, but the process would take time.
He said Punjab Climate Watch was working in three shifts to monitor Lahore’s industries, with teams inspecting for violations, registering cases and imposing fines. Separately, the EPA’s own figures show 1,745 vehicle challans issued and 621 vehicles impounded in Lahore between 1 May and 31 August.
Wednesday’s ranking followed a bad week. Lahore topped the list on Friday with an AQI of 410, in the “hazardous” category, with Delhi second on 203. The readings reached 500 in parts of the city, including Shahdara, Kahna Nau and Multan Road. On Tuesday, the Punjab government’s own air quality platform recorded 285 at 6am, up from 229 at the same hour on Monday.
Lahore also topped IQAir’s list on 2 October, with an AQI of 167, classed as “unhealthy”. Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz said then that the government was working to address environmental problems. This month, the European Union’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service ranked Lahore among cities with “extremely poor” ozone levels.
Air pollution has become one of the most serious public health and environmental problems in Pakistan in recent years. Lahore and other cities suffer most in winter, when the smog is blamed mainly on industrial emissions, vehicle exhaust, stubble burning and wind patterns.
The anti-smog guns, which spray a fine mist to settle dust, were first used in Lahore last October. Marriyum Aurangzeb, Punjab’s senior minister, said that after the first operation in Kahna the local reading fell from 666 to 170. Experts argued that the guns are mechanical dust-suppression tools that temporarily settle coarse particles in small areas, and questioned whether they address the underlying problem.
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