The PM2.5 reading on Friday averaged 706 micrograms, while the WHO deems anything above an annual average of 5 micrograms unsafe
Decorative lights in the balconies of a high-rise during Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, in Noida, a satellite city of Delhi, on November 4 2021. REUTERS/ANUSHREE FADNAVIS The morning after Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, residents of New Delhi woke up under a blanket of toxic smog and breathed in the most dangerously polluted air of the year so far, after revellers, as usual, defied a fireworks ban.
The AQI measures the concentration of poisonous particulate matter PM2.5 in a cubic metre of air. In Delhi, a city of nearly 20-million people, the PM2.5 reading on Friday averaged 706 micrograms, whereas the World Health Organisation deems anything above an annual average of 5 micrograms as unsafe. Every year, either government authorities or India's Supreme Court impose a ban on firecrackers. But the bans rarely appear to be enforced.
A rare spell of clear skies in October due to intermittent rains and winds had helped Delhiites breathe their cleanest air in at least four years.
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