Delhi\u2019s air quality was reported as \u201csevere\u201d following the Diwali celebrations on Sunday night.<\/p>\n
A thick, toxic haze was seen hanging over Delhi and adjoining cities on Monday morning. The average air quality index (AQI) was 463 at 10 am on Monday, it was reported by SAFAR (a System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research funded by the Centre). This was slightly better than last year\u2019s reading, which had crossed 600.<\/p>\n
Under the index, air quality between 301 and 400 is marked as \u201cvery poor\u201d, while above 401 is said to be \u201csevere\u201d. This year\u2019s reading is worse than 2017 and 2016.\u00a0Delhi\u2019s post-Diwali AQI was 367 in 2017 and 425 in 2016.<\/p>\n
Over 200 fire-related mishaps were reported from parts of Delhi yesterday. The Delhi government had arranged for laser-light shows in various parts of the city to encourage city dwellers to celebrate Diwali through light and music.<\/p>\n
The reading provided by the Central Pollution Control Board also echoed the readings by SAFAR, standing at an alarming 345 till 9am on Monday. It may deteriorate as further readings are captured as the day progresses. SAFAR measures Delhi’s AQI based on reading from nine stations, while CPCB\u2019s reading is based on 37 stations.
\nDuring this time of the year, there is low wind speed in Delhi, so airborne pollutants take longer time to settle down, making the air more toxic. Also, burning of crop stubble by farmers in adjoining states, construction activities and unregulated bursting of fireworks and crackers on Diwali makes the condition worse.<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court has fixed the time for bursting firecrackers from 8pm-10pm and left the states to decide fixing the timing as per their convenience. However, the total duration cannot exceed two hours.<\/p>\n
[Picture representational]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
However, this year\u2019s reading is worse than 2016 and 2017.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":279,"featured_media":7034,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_seo_keywords":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/279"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}