Hindustan Times (Delhi)

Firecracke­rs end clean air spell; AQI moderate

- Soumya Pillai soumya.pillai@htlive.com HT Correspond­ent htreporter­s@hindustant­imes.com

nNEW DELHI: On Sunday night, Delhi’s 13-day spell of good air days was broken. A sudden spurt in firecracke­r burning on Sunday, coupled with low wind speed, pushed the city’s air quality further into the ‘moderate’ category on Monday.

While environmen­t experts said that the situation could have been worse if such unpreceden­ted firecracke­r bursting had happened in “normal circumstan­ces”, authoritie­s are ascertaini­ng how large quantities of crackers were procured by people during the ongoing lockdown to curb the spread of Covid-19.

Amid the Covid-19 outbreak, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had urged people to come out to their balconies and light candles, earthen lamps or torch lights for nine minutes at 9pm on Sunday to show their support for the government’s fight against the disease.

However, on Sunday evening, while lamps glowed, the sound of firecracke­rs also echoed across the city.

As per the data, the overall air quality index (AQI) of Delhi on Monday was recorded 142, up from Sunday’s 102, in the lowerend of ‘moderate’ zone.

On Saturday, the AQI was 87 (‘satisfacto­ry’), as recorded by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).

By 4.30pm on Monday, the AQI at many stations in Delhi had slipped to the ‘poor’ category. Monitoring stations at Rohini, Wazirpur and Vivek Vihar recorded AQI levels above 200 at 4.30 pm.

Since March 24, the air quality levels in the national Capital have consistent­ly remained in the ‘satisfacto­ry’ zone, and had even improved to ‘good’, with an AQI of 45 on March 28.

Experts said that assessing real-time air pollution, the spike in the pollution levels between 9pm and 10pm on Sunday was somewhat similar to that seen in the early hours of Diwali night.

If such cracker burning activity had happened in regular circumstan­ces, with vehicles plying and industries operating, and that too, under similar weather conditions, the air quality in Delhi would have dipped considerab­ly, experts said.

A senior CPCB official said

nNEW DELHI: The national capital recorded the highest maximum temperatur­e this spring on Monday, with the mercury climbing to 35.8 degrees Celsius.

According to the India Meteorolog­ical Department (IMD), the maximum temperatur­e at the Safdarjung observator­y, which is considered the official marker for the capital, was

that since cracker burning was consistent across the city and was the only polluting activity that took place, its impact on the city’s air quality index was noticeable.

“Since these circumstan­ces are not normal and everything else is shut, the AQI levels remained in the moderate zone. The problem was that even the wind speed was not strong enough to neutralise the impact of cracker bursting. But Sunday’s cracker burning was more like a freak episode, which authoritie­s were not anticipati­ng. We can attribute the spike in pollution solely to cracker bursting because nothing else is happening,” the official said.

Weathermen said that the wind speeds were low through Saturday, Sunday and until Monday afternoon.

“The winds were calm on Sunday night and it was only by Monday morning that it improved to reach around five to six kilometres per hour (kmph). By Monday afternoon, the wind speed picked up to reach around 15kmph. This was not enough to blow away the pollution caused by yesterday’s (Sunday) cracker burning,” said Kuldeep Srivastava, head of India Meteorolog­ical Department’s (IMD) regional weather forecastin­g centre.

Srivastava said that the wind speed will pick up from Monday night. There is also a forecast of rain and thundersto­rm on Tuesday, which is likely to improve air quality to acceptable levels, he said.

Delhi Pollution Control Committee’s 35.8 degrees Celsius and the minimum was 18.5 degrees Celsius.

At the Palam observator­y, the maximum temperatur­e touched 37.5 degrees Celsius, while the minimum was 19.1 degrees Celsius.

IMD scientists said that the maximum temperatur­es are likely to hover around 35 degrees C till Wednesday. On Tuesday there is a forecast for light rain and thundersto­rm.

(DPCC) hourly average data on particulat­e matter levels shows that at 9pm on Sunday, PM 2.5 (ultrafine particulat­e matter with diameter less than 2.5 micrometre­s) levels in Delhi’s air was 48.1ug/m3. This spiked to 49.5ug/m3 at 10pm and gradually to 57ug/m3 by 6am on Monday.

Delhi Police officials said that considerin­g that the city is under lockdown and only the sale of essential commoditie­s is being permitted, chances are that the crackers that were burnt on Sunday night were hoarded by people since last Diwali.

Senior officials said that no action was taken against cracker bursting. Officials also confirmed that no permission requests were received by them for licences to sell crackers over the last few weeks.

“All shops selling non-essential commoditie­s are shut and our teams are continuous­ly monitoring areas. The crackers that were burst last night could be what people saved from Diwali,” said MS Randhawa, Delhi Police spokespers­on.

Wholesale cracker dealers said that sale has been completely shut during the lockdown. Narendra Gupta, president of fireworks and general traders associatio­n in Sadar Bazar, said that permanent vendors had also stopped distributi­on and sales.

“Nobody had anticipate­d that there would be a call from the Prime Minister to light candles, let alone cracker bursting,” said Gupta.

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