Lahore ranks world's most polluted city as air turns hazardous

Lahore topped the list of the world’s most polluted major cities on Friday, with air quality at hazardous levels, according to the air quality platform IQAir, as doctors advised residents to wear masks.

Dawn reported an air quality index (AQI) of 410 on the IQAir live tracker on Friday morning, while Geo News reported 344 at about 8am. The readings differ because the tracker updates through the day. Both fall in the worst categories of the US AQI scale, where anything above 300 is considered hazardous.

How the readings compare

IQAir identified the main pollutant as PM2.5, fine particles that can enter the bloodstream and even the brain. It said the concentration in Lahore was 45.2 times the World Health Organisation’s annual PM2.5 guideline in one reading, Dawn reported, and 57 times in the earlier one cited by Geo News.

India’s capital, Delhi, ranked second in both reports, with an AQI of 203 in Dawn’s account and 244 in Geo’s. Dakar in Senegal came third in Dawn’s list at 196, while Geo’s list had Dakar at 184, with Mumbai at 179 and Kolkata at 172. Karachi was the only other Pakistani city on the 21-city list, with an AQI of 110, Dawn said.

Geo News gave readings for parts of Lahore from the same monitoring data:

• Iqbal Town: 535, the highest
• Airwash on Bedian Road: 497
• Kahna: 446
• DHA Phase 5: 360
• Model Town: 350
• Barki Road: 253

The government’s own figures

The Punjab government’s air quality platform recorded an AQI of 339 for Lahore at 11am on Thursday, which it classified as “very unhealthy”, using data from 10 monitoring stations across the city. The Express Tribune reported that on Thursday the provincial dashboard showed Rajanpur with the highest city reading in Punjab at 339, followed by Kasur at 266, Faisalabad at 251, Pakpattan at 245 and Vehari at 233, with Lahore at 198 at the time of that update. The differences between platforms may be due to monitoring stations, averaging periods and methods, Dawn noted, though both pointed to severe pollution.

Health warnings and criticism

IQAir advised people in Lahore to avoid outdoor exercise, keep windows closed, wear a mask outdoors and use an air purifier indoors. Geo News reported that doctors also asked residents to wear masks.

Human rights activist Sheikh Saqib told Dawn that both his children had throat infections because of smog. He said school attendance could fall by half as parents stopped sending children to class, and he criticised what he called empty government claims on controlling pollution. He disputed the chief minister’s statements that smog had been controlled over the past three years, saying he still saw crop burning along the motorways to Islamabad and Karachi and smoke-emitting vehicles on Lahore’s roads.

Unicef has warned that polluted air puts children at higher risk of acute respiratory infections, and a 2023 study found that air pollution can cut life expectancy by more than five years in parts of South Asia, Geo News noted. Smog also forces school closures, slows transport and strains health services across the region.

Context

Lahore also topped IQAir’s list on October 2, when its AQI was 167, and Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz said then that the government was working on environmental problems. Earlier this week, an analysis by the European Union’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service ranked Lahore among cities with “extremely poor” ozone levels. The winter mix of cooler air that traps pollutants, crop-residue smoke, traffic emissions, industrial fumes and construction dust is the usual cause. Read our earlier reports on Lahore’s pre-smog air quality and on the anti-smog squads.

Why it matters

Smog arrives every winter, and the early start of hazardous readings in October means a longer season of risk for children, the elderly and people with lung conditions. The next few weeks will show whether the anti-smog squads and crop-burning controls can bring the readings down, or whether schools and hospitals will again carry the burden.

This article draws on reporting by Dawn, The Express Tribune and Geo News.