NEW DELHI: Schools were shut across India’s capital on Friday as a noxious grey smog engulfed the megacity and made life a misery for its 30 million inhabitants.
Smoke from farmers burning crop stubble, vehicle exhaust and factory emissions combine every winter to blanket Delhi in a choking haze.
The public health crisis has persisted for decades and researchers have blamed the smog for hundreds of thousands of premature deaths across India.
Levels of the most dangerous PM2.5 particles — so tiny they can enter the bloodstream — were on Friday almost 35 times the daily maximum recommended by the World Health Organization, according to monitoring firm IQAir.
“In light of the rising pollution levels, all govt and private primary schools in Delhi will remain closed for the next 2 days,” chief minister Arvind Kejriwal wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Delhi, one of the largest urban areas on the planet, is also regularly ranked as one of the world’s most polluted cities.
Visible smog is a burden for residents through much of the year, but the problem peaks at the start of winter around the Hindu festival of Diwali.
The holy day coincides with the weeks when tens of thousands of farmers across north India set fire to their fields to clear crop stubble from recently harvested rice paddies.
That practice is one of the key drivers of Delhi’s annual smog problem, worsening the impact of vehicle and industrial emissions.
It persists despite efforts to persuade farmers to use different clearing methods and threats of punitive action for those who defy burning bans.
Eye-stinging and lung-burning smog peaks from October to February when colder air traps pollution, with residents advised to wear face masks outside at all times.
“For the next two months it is going to be worst period,” Delhi resident Pradeep Dund told AFP.
“We cannot even breathe properly.”
Authorities regularly announce different plans to reduce pollution, for example by halting construction work, but to little effect.
India is hosting the Cricket World Cup and organizers have banned fireworks at matches in Mumbai and Delhi to avoid compounding hazardous air pollution levels.
Bangladesh are scheduled to play Sri Lanka in Delhi on Monday but canceled a scheduled Friday training session because of the haze, with little likelihood of the air clearing for their match.
“Some of us developed coughing, so there’s a risk factor,” Bangladesh team director Khaled Mahmud said, according to Indian daily Business Standard.
“We don’t want to get sick. We don’t know if things will improve.”
India captain Rohit Sharma told reporters Wednesday that the situation was “not ideal” for the tournament.
“Everyone knows that,” he said. “Looking at our future generation... it’s quite important that they get to live without any fear.”
A Lancet study in 2020 attributed 1.67 million deaths to air pollution in India during the previous year, including almost 17,500 in the capital.
And the average city resident could die nearly 12 years earlier than expected due to air pollution, according to an August report by the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute.
India is heavily reliant on polluting coal for energy generation. Its per capita coal emissions have risen 29 percent in the past seven years and it has shied away from policies to phase down the dirty fossil fuel.
The smog is also a major public health issue in neighboring Pakistan, where authorities in the city of Lahore ordered schoolchildren to wear masks during lessons from Thursday to help mitigate health problems.
Schools shut as toxic smog engulfs India’s capital
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Schools shut as toxic smog engulfs India’s capital
- Smoke from farmers burning crop stubble, vehicle exhaust combine every winter to blanket Delhi in a choking haze
- The crisis has persisted for decades and researchers blame smog for hundreds of thousands of premature deaths
Pakistan locks down capital ahead of a planned rally by Imran Khan supporters
- Interior Ministry is considering a suspension of mobile phone services in parts of Pakistan in the coming days
- Pakistan has banned gatherings of five or more people in Islamabad for two months to deter Khan’s supporters
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is sealing off its capital, Islamabad, ahead of a planned rally by supporters of imprisoned former premier Imran Khan.
It’s the second time in as many months that authorities have imposed such measures to thwart tens of thousands of people from gathering in the city to demand Khan’s release.
The latest lockdown coincides with the visit of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who arrives in Islamabad on Monday.
Local media reported that the Interior Ministry is considering a suspension of mobile phone services in parts of Pakistan in the coming days. On Friday, the National Highways and Motorway Police announced that key routes would close for maintenance.
It advised people to avoid unnecessary travel and said the decision was taken following intelligence reports that “angry protesters” are planning to create a law and order situation and damage public and private property on Sunday, the day of the planned rally.
“There are reports that protesters are coming with sticks and slingshots,” the statement added.
Multicolored shipping containers, a familiar sight to people living and working in Islamabad, reappeared on key roads Saturday to throttle traffic.
Pakistan has already banned gatherings of five or more people in Islamabad for two months to deter Khan’s supporters and activists from his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, or PTI.
Khan has been in prison for more than a year in connection and has over 150 criminal cases against him. But he remains popular and the PTI says the cases are politically motivated.
A three-day shutdown was imposed in Islamabad for a security summit last month.
Indian man awakes on funeral pyre
- Doctors sent Rohitash Kumar, 25, to mortuary instead of conducting postmortem after he fell ill
- Kumar was rushed to hospital on Friday for treatment but was confirmed dead later
JAIPUR: An Indian man awoke on a funeral pyre moments before it was to be set on fire after a doctor skipped a postmortem, medical officials said Saturday.
Rohitash Kumar, 25, who had speaking and hearing difficulties, had fallen sick and was taken to a hospital in Jhunjhunu in the western state of Rajasthan on Thursday.
Indian media reported he had had an epileptic seizure, and a doctor declared him dead on arrival at the hospital.
But instead of the required postmortem to ascertain the cause of death, doctors sent him to the mortuary, and then to be burned according to Hindu rites.
D. Singh, chief medical officer of the hospital, told AFP that a doctor had “prepared the postmortem report without actually doing the postmortem, and the body was then sent for cremation.”
Singh said that “shortly before the pyre was to be lit, Rohitash’s body started movements,” adding that “he was alive and was breathing.”
Kumar was rushed to hospital for a second time, but was confirmed dead on Friday during treatment.
Authorities have suspended the services of three doctors and the police have launched an investigation.
NATO chief discusses ‘global security’ with Trump
- NATO allies say keeping Kyiv in the fight against Moscow is key to both European and American security
Brussels: NATO chief Mark Rutte held talks with US President-elect Donald Trump in Florida on the “global security issues facing the alliance,” a spokeswoman said Saturday.
The meeting took place on Friday in Palm Beach, NATO’s Farah Dakhlallah said in a statement.
In his first term Trump aggressively pushed Europe to step up defense spending and questioned the fairness of the NATO transatlantic alliance.
The former Dutch prime minister had said he wanted to meet Trump two days after Trump was elected on November 5, and discuss the threat of increasingly warming ties between North Korea and Russia.
Trump’s thumping victory to return to the US presidency has set nerves jangling in Europe that he could pull the plug on vital Washington military aid for Ukraine.
NATO allies say keeping Kyiv in the fight against Moscow is key to both European and American security.
“What we see more and more is that North Korea, Iran, China and of course Russia are working together, working together against Ukraine,” Rutte said recently at a European leaders’ meeting in Budapest.
“At the same time, Russia has to pay for this, and one of the things they are doing is delivering technology to North Korea,” which he warned was threatening to the “mainland of the US (and) continental Europe.”
“I look forward to sitting down with Donald Trump to discuss how we can face these threats collectively,” Rutte said.
Indian man awakes on funeral pyre
JAIPUR, India: An Indian man awoke on a funeral pyre moments before it was to be set on fire after a doctor skipped a postmortem, medical officials said Saturday.
Rohitash Kumar, 25, who had speaking and hearing difficulties, had fallen sick and was taken to a hospital in Jhunjhunu in the western state of Rajasthan on Thursday.
Indian media reported he had had an epileptic seizure, and a doctor declared him dead on arrival at the hospital.
But instead of the required postmortem to ascertain the cause of death, doctors sent him to the mortuary, and then to be burned according to Hindu rites.
D. Singh, chief medical officer of the hospital, told AFP that a doctor had “prepared the postmortem report without actually doing the postmortem, and the body was then sent for cremation.”
Singh said that “shortly before the pyre was to be lit, Rohitash’s body started movements,” adding that “he was alive and was breathing.”
Kumar was rushed to hospital for a second time, but was confirmed dead on Friday during treatment.
Authorities have suspended the services of three doctors and the police have launched an investigation.
Fighting between armed sectarian groups in restive northwestern Pakistan kills at least 33 people
- Senior police officer said Saturday armed men torched shops, houses and government property overnight
- Although the two groups generally live together peacefully, tensions remain, especially in Kurram
PESHAWAR: Fighting between armed Sunni and Shiite groups in northwestern Pakistan killed at least 33 people and injured 25 others, a senior police officer from the region said Saturday.
The overnight violence was the latest to rock Kurram, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and comes days after a deadly gun ambush killed 42 people.
Shiite Muslims make up about 15 percent of the 240 million people in Sunni-majority Pakistan, which has a history of sectarian animosity between the communities.
Although the two groups generally live together peacefully, tensions remain, especially in Kurram.
The senior police officer said armed men in Bagan and Bacha Kot torched shops, houses and government property.
Intense gunfire was ongoing between the Alizai and Bagan tribes in the Lower Kurram area.
“Educational institutions in Kurram are closed due to the severe tension. Both sides are targeting each other with heavy and automatic weapons,” said the officer, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Videos shared with The Associated Press showed a market engulfed by fire and orange flames piercing the night sky. Gunfire can also be heard.
The location of Thursday’s attack was also targeted by armed men, who marched on the area.
Survivors of the gun ambush said assailants emerged from a vehicle and sprayed buses and cars with bullets. Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack and police have not identified a motive.
Dozens of people from the district’s Sunni and Shiite communities have been killed since July, when a land dispute erupted in Kurram that later turned into general sectarian violence.
