Low visibility at Delhi airport due to thick smog meant that 37 flights were canceled or diverted on Sunday. India’s capital city has not been a stranger to thick blankets of smog over the city in recent years, however, the noxious air has recently hospitalised thousands of people.
On Sunday the Air Quality Index (AQI) crossed 999, which was literally off the charts to accurately measure. By comparison, a safe level of AQI is measured at 50. Therefore last week Delhi’s air quality was over 20-times a safe recording which has now led to the government imposing emergency measures for the next two weeks in an attempt to quell the issue that is devastating peoples’ health and the economy. Residents in Delhi have complained of burning eyes and throats and celebrities including Priyanka Chopra has been seen wearing a face mask onset.
Plane is seen during a dense fog day at Indira Gandhi International airport in New Delhi, India on … [+]
More than 500 flights have been delayed at Delhi airport due to the thick smog and a further 37 were diverted on Sunday. Visibility dropped to below 600 meters for four hours between 9 am and 1:30 pm with both Air India and Vistara cancelling a handful of flights.
What has caught airlines off guard is that the seasonality of thick smog usually starts at the beginning of December. Coming during the first week of November is unseasonable and this means that more pilots are lacking the specific training for “low-visibility operations” during this period.
Indian groundstaff prepare a stairway for the arrival of an aircraft carrying Britain’s Prime … [+]
New Delhi struggles with one of the worst spells of air pollution in recent years. Most of Delhi’s neighbouring states are largely dependent on agriculture, with farmers resorting to crop-stubble burning before each sowing season, which worsens air pollution over Delhi and its satellite towns. / AFP / MONEY SHARMA (Photo credit should read MONEY SHARMA/AFP via Getty Images)
Cancellations were mostly domestic with destinations such as Jaipur and Amritsar seeing schedules cut. With the city still shrouded in a cloud of toxic smog, there seem to be very few ideas from authorities as to how to solve this long-standing problem. The Supreme Court has said that state governments have simply ‘passed the buck’.
With a car rationing system that stretches for just two weeks, it is not clear what concrete measures will be put in place for a city that is choking in smog. It is widely believed that the key cause of the thick polluted air over New Delhi is largely contributed to by local farmers in neighbouring states burning crops, with less focus out on car fumes.
NEW DELHI, INDIA – NOVEMBER 4: Tourists using protective masks amid heavy smog, at Mehrauli on … [+]
Therefore, preventative policies have still not got to the root cause of the problem. Schools are closed until today at the earliest and it is expected that the shutdown will last until Friday. The problem has become such commonplace that it is now known as “pollution season”.
Delhi is landlocked and hemmed in by the Himalaya mountains which mean smog sits over the city for weeks at a time. Winds have cleared the “apocalyptic Sunday’’ smog for now, but with the problem seemingly worsening the arch year, drastic measures are necessary to keep Delhi’s residents healthy and the economy running.
