The air quality in New Delhi, India's capital, reached "hazardous" levels following the widespread use of fireworks during the Diwali festival. Swiss firm IQAir recorded the city's Air Quality Index (AQI) at 442 on Tuesday morning, ranking it the most polluted major city globally. The concentration of tiny airborne PM2.5 particles exceeded the World Health Organization’s recommended annual guideline by more than 59 times.
This annual pollution spike occurs as fireworks combine with emissions from traffic, industry, and agriculture during the cooler months. While India’s Supreme Court had recently relaxed a ban to permit "green crackers" for a maximum of three hours, the ruling was widely ignored, with reports of violations. Authorities warn that air quality is expected to remain "Very Poor to Poor" in the coming days.
Regionally, Lahore, Pakistan, also registered the world’s second-highest AQI at 234, with Pakistani environmental officials citing smoke from the Indian Punjab region as a contributing factor to the high pollution levels in the shared border area.
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