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dailykhaleej · 4 years

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In India, life under coronavirus brings blue skies and clean air

Individuals stand close to the banks of the Yamuna river throughout a government-imposed nationwide lockdown as a safety measure in opposition to the COVID-19 coronavirus, in New Delhi on April 6, 2020. / AFP / Cash SHARMA Picture Credit score: AFP

New Delhi: Contained in the world’s largest lockdown, there are not any flights, no passenger trains, no taxis and few functioning industries. However one factor is remarkably plentiful: cleaner air.

India is engaged in a determined bid to “flatten the curve” of coronavirus circumstances earlier than they overwhelm the creaky well being system on this nation of greater than 1.three billion folks.

In the meantime, the three-week lockdown, which was prolonged, is flattening one thing else – India’s infamous air air pollution. The pace of the change has stunned even consultants, who say it’s proof that dramatic enhancements in air high quality will be achieved, albeit at an unlimited human and financial price.

Days after the lockdown started on March 25, the extent of particle air pollution thought-about most dangerous to human well being fell by practically 60 per cent in New Delhi, India’s capital, in accordance with an evaluation by consultants on the nonprofit Middle for Science and Setting. Related drops have occurred in different main Indian cities.

In regular occasions, Delhi is the world’s most polluted megalopolis. For a lot of the winter, air high quality readings stay at ranges that in the USA are thought-about unhealthy or worse. Final November, town skilled its longest spell of hazardous air since such report protecting started.

The India Gate warfare memorial in New Delhi on October 17, 2019 and on April 8, 2020.

Today, Delhiites are caught of their houses besides when selecting up important items. However above them are blue skies, the moon and the celebrities, seen with out the standard barrier of smog. The sight is so placing that “I feel like complimenting the sky for its beauty,” mentioned Sameer Dhanda, 26, an architect.

In different components of India, the Himalayan mountain vary is seen from a distance for the primary time in years. Waterways choked by industrial air pollution, similar to Delhi’s Yamuna River – stuffed with gray foam simply months in the past – are flowing unimpeded.

The present discount in air pollution has come at a steep value. A lot of the Indian economic system has been idled, forcing weak staff to journey a whole bunch of miles to their dwelling villages on foot. Tens of millions might be plunged into poverty or starvation if the lockdown continues past its preliminary three-week interval.

However consultants say that there are nonetheless classes to be gleaned, together with an opportunity to think about a distinct future. The lower in air pollution is a “proof of concept” that demonstrates clean air “is doable,” mentioned Ajay Mathur, a former Indian local weather negotiator and a member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s council on local weather change. “The linkage between personal behaviour and what I will breathe is far clearer now than it has been in the past.”

Step one for any authorities is to make sure that “the vast number of Indians have sustainable livelihoods,” Mathur added. Nonetheless, he hopes that coverage adjustments – similar to phasing out soiled industrial fuels and accelerating the shift to environmentally pleasant autos – will get a lift within the post-pandemic world.

Vanished

Mathur typically suffers from a raspy voice and persistent cough that medical doctors have informed him is expounded to Delhi’s unhealthy air. In the previous two weeks, he mentioned, such signs have vanished.

One horrible irony of the present disaster is {that a} pandemic that makes it troublesome for some to breathe has, by curbing air pollution, eased respiratory troubles for others. Pulmonologists in Delhi say lots of their common sufferers are respiration simpler and decreasing their use of inhalers. For them, this era is a sort of boon, mentioned Arvind Kumar, a chest surgeon and trustee of the Lung Care Basis.

Banks of the river Yamuna in March 2018 and April 2020.

India’s long-running battle with air pollution might have rendered it notably weak to the novel coronavirus. Researchers at Harvard not too long ago discovered that locations with long-term publicity to increased ranges of positive particle air pollution – often known as PM2.5 – have been related to increased charges of demise attributable to covid-19. Such particles can lodge deep within the lungs and have been linked to hypertension, coronary heart illness, respiratory infections and even most cancers. Up to now, about 200 folks in India have died of covid-19, with greater than 6,500 circumstances of the sickness confirmed.

Anumita Roy Chowdhury, an air air pollution skilled at Delhi’s Middle for Science and Setting, described India’s improved air high quality as “a very big unintended experiment unfolding in front of us.” The lockdown demonstrates “the scale at which change is needed,” she mentioned, but additionally exhibits folks “what it means to breathe clean air.”

Worst interval

Throughout an enormous swath of northern India, the air high quality usually varies from poor to apocalyptic, relying on the time of 12 months, with a quick respite throughout the annual monsoon. The worst interval begins when temperatures drop in October, trapping close to floor degree a mixture of industrial emissions, street mud, vehicular exhaust and ash from burned crop stubble. Air pollution begins to ease in February. Jyoti Pande Lavakare, an writer and anti-pollution activist in Delhi, mentioned she doesn’t bear in mind seeing skies of this sort of blue at the moment of 12 months in no less than a decade. In current days, she started doing her morning workout routines outdoors and discovered herself mendacity on her again on her yoga mat, simply gazing on the sky.

“After we battle the current pandemic, we need to revisit how we treat the invisible killer of air pollution,” Lavakare mentioned. The World Well being Group estimates that polluted air kills 7 million folks yearly.

For now, Delhi residents are treasuring a uncommon upside of a time marked by worry and fear. Priyanki Choudhury, a 29-year-old account supervisor, mentioned she has not skilled something like this – clear blue skies within the day and stars at night time – since she was a teen. Choudhury was undecided whether or not the lockdown would achieve stemming the unfold of covid-19. However, for the setting, she mentioned, it’s clearly a “time to heal.”

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cnexportbusiness · 4 years

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Outdoor air purifier project gathers dust

While the Delhi government is considering installing outdoor air purifiers at traffic intersections, it turns out that the last time the city experimented with such a project, it was left hanging for five years.

The New Delhi Municipal Council had set up an air filtering station in 2010, before the Commonwealth Games.

The purifier was installed outside Palika Bazaar in Connaught Place free of cost by a company called System Life on March 6, 2010. The machine cleaned 10,000 cubic metres of air every hour for about 18 months. The system worked by cleaning polluted air of particulate matter and gases with fabric filters, active carbon cartridges and electrostatic filters.

According to System Life India director Dhruv Chanana, the machine was operational till October 18, 2011, before being removed. “It was removed because no one wanted to accept the need to clean the air,” said Mr. Chanana, adding that had the NDMC gone ahead with more such purifiers, the pollution levels in the area would have reduced. That being said, the authorities have remained mum on the effectiveness of such a project.

Dr. P.K. Sharma, NDMC’s Medical Officer of Health, said it was a pilot project and had not received the necessary approvals to continue. “It was a free demonstration by the company. Before continuing with the project, it required clearance of the Central Pollution Control Board and the Delhi Pollution Control Committee. We are yet to receive that,” said Dr. Sharma.

95% efficiency

The air samples from the trial were analysed by three Italian scientists, including from the University of Modena. Their report was submitted to the NDMC and subsequently to the DPCC.

According to the report, a copy of which is with The Hindu , a total of 2.12 kg of particulate matter had been detained in 860 hours and the filtering efficiency of the system was 95 per cent.

The report concluded that with an “appropriate number of systems” (about 22 for Connaught Place) the air quality of an area could improve.

The DPCC, which works under the Delhi government’s Environment and Forest Department, for its part, did not make any comments on the efficiency of the system, as per a letter sent by one of its scientists to System Life on October 12, 2010. According to the letter, a copy of which is with The Hindu , the DPCC had not commented on the report “as no specific study was undertaken” by it.

Environmentalists, however, used the experience of the NDMC project to question the AAP government’s proposal to install outdoor air purifiers. Anumita Roychowdhury, the head of the Centre for Science and Environment’s air pollution and clean transportation programme, said air purifiers worked within confined environments, “but outdoor air is a complex chemistry with dynamic movement pattern”.

Source: Outdoor air purifier project gathers dust

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