Dire conditions: Schoolchildren wearing face masks as they walk along a road amid heavy smoggy conditions in Peshawar. — AFP
ON the streets of the country’s second biggest city, smog stings eyes and burns throats. Inside homes, few people can afford air purifiers to limit the damage of toxic particles that seep through doors and windows.
Lahore – a city of 14 million people stuffed with factories on the border with India – regularly ranks among the world’s most polluted cities, but it has hit record levels this month.
Schools have closed in the main cities of Punjab province, of which Lahore is the capital, until Nov 17 in a bid to lower children’s exposure to the pollution, especially during the morning commute when it is often at its highest.
“The children are constantly coughing and have allergies. In schools we saw most of them were falling sick,” said Rafia Iqbal, a primary school teacher in the city that borders India.Her husband Muhammad Safdar said the level of pollution “is making daily living impossible. We cannot move around, go outside, we can do nothing at all.”
According to the international Air Quality Index Scale, an index value of 300 or higher results is “hazardous” to health, and Pakistan has regularly tipped over 1,000 on the scale.
In Multan, another city of several million people some 350km away, the AQI level passed 2,000 last week – a staggering height never seen before by residents.
Access to parks, zoos, playgrounds, historic monuments, museums and recreational areas will be banned until Nov 17.
Tuk-tuks with polluting two-stroke engines, along with restaurants that operate barbecues without filters have been banned in Lahore “hotspots”.
Air purifiers are a luxury for most families, with the added cost of replacing filters every few months in such extreme pollution.A mix of low-grade fuel emissions from factories and vehicles, exacerbated by agricultural stubble burning, blanket the city each winter, trapped by cooler temperatures and slow-moving winds.
The World Health Organisation says air pollution can trigger strokes, heart disease, lung cancer and other respiratory diseases.
It is particularly punishing for children, babies and the elderly.
Last year, the Punjab government tested artificial rain to try to overcome the smog. This year, trucks with water cannons sprayed the streets -- with no results.Special smog counters to triage patients have been established at clinics across the province, with 900 people admitted to hospital in Lahore alone last Tuesday.
For days, the concentration of polluting micro-particles PM2.5 in Punjab has been dozens of times higher than that deemed tolerable by the WHO.
Dr Alia Haider, also a climate activist, is calling for awareness campaigns for patients who often do not know the dangers of smog.
Children from poor neighbourhoods, she said, are the first victims as they live all year round with pollutants of different types.
“We are stuck in our own poison,” she said. It’s like a cloud of gas over the city.” — AFP
