New Delhi enveloped in thick, toxic smog

Meetings sought with nearby states amid ‘emergency.’

Thick toxic smog enveloped New Delhi for a second straight day Wednesday, forcing schools to shut down, halting traffic on highways and sending residents scurrying to buy air purifiers and filtration masks.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, leader of the mega-city of about 20 million people, called the capital a “gas chamber” as his government sought meetings with adjoining states to address the issue.

By mid-afternoon, the deadly level of carcinogenic pollutants in New Delhi’s air was roughly 10 times the reading in Beijing, a city globally infamous for its air pollution. Experts are calling the situation in New Delhi a major public health emergency.

“The situation as it exists today is the worst that I have seen in my 35 years staying in the city of Delhi,” said Arvind Kumar, a lung surgeon at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital. “As a doctor, I have no problem saying that the situation today is a public health emergency. If you want to protect people, we should be ordering the evacuation of Delhi. Closing down all schools. Closing down all offices.”

Kejriwal blamed the pollution on farmers in the neighboring states of Haryana and Punjab who burn crop residue, an annual tradition to clear fields that combines with vehicle and industrial emissions, as well as road and construction dust.

A day earlier, a senior member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party blamed the pollution partly on Kejriwal’s “failure to maintain” working relationships with nearby chief ministers, one of whom belongs to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

Shikha Gupta, 32, an IT professional in Delhi, has kept her children and elderly parents inside and has stopped taking her morning walks. “I just stepped out of my office a couple of minutes ago and my eyes are burning already,” she said.

The levels of the deadliest, tiny particulate matter known as PM 2.5, which lodge deep in a person’s lungs, soared overnight on Nov. 8 to 726, according to a U.S. embassy monitor.

World Health Organization guidelines suggest exposure to levels of about 10, while anything less than 50 is considered healthy and levels above 300 are considered “hazardous.” At 2 p.m. Wednesday, Beijing had a level of around 76 while pollutants in Delhi’s air measured 833.

R S IYER / ASSOCIATED PRESS Cows stand by the side of a road as a truck drives with lights on through smog Wednesday in Greater Noida, near New Delhi, India. The city’s leader blamed the pollution on farmers in neighboring states who burn crop residue in an annual tradition.