NEW DELHI: Indian authorities have ordered firefighters in the capital to sprinkle water from high-rise buildings to settle dust and stop garbage fires and have banned construction activity as hazardous air quality affects millions of people.
New Delhi recorded one of the highest pollution levels of the year on Sunday with the air quality index, measuring sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide, touching 450.
The air started improving Wednesday with an increase in wind speed. However, the level of PM 2.5, tiny particulate matter that can dangerously clog lungs, exceeded 320 on Thursday, more than 13 times beyond what the World Health Organization considers safe, according to the U.S. Embassy reading.
A government advisory asked people to avoid jogging outdoor and use masks. The government has banned diesel vehicles that are more than 10 years old. It also ordered builders to cover construction sites to stop dust enveloping the area.
"There are so many cars ... there is so much dust. It all goes inside (our body). If we don't wear a mask then we face a lot of (health) problems," said Om Prakash, a traffic police constable wearing a protective mask on a New Delhi road.
India's air pollution comes mostly from diesel fuel-burning vehicles, coal-fired power plants and crop burning. It worsens in the dry winters, as winds die down and pollution pools over the Delhi plains.
Vehicular smog mixes with smoke from festival-season fireworks as well as countless illegal pyres of garbage burned by homeless migrants to stay warm as temperatures near freezing. And the construction sends up clouds of dust.
Vivek Chattopadhyaya, a senior program manager with New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, said that air quality most of the days in and around the Indian capital during the winter season was "very poor, poor and severe."
"Delhi's air quality, when we say improvement, what we notice is that it falls from severe to very poor days. None of the days are good, satisfactory or even moderately polluted," he said. "We need to meet the quality standards, which are the safest standards for the people to breathe air. So that should be our target."
The Indian capital saw some success following a 1998-2003 program that removed power plants from the city center and adopted compressed natural gas, CNG, for running buses and rickshaws. The buses had run on diesel and the rickshaws on gasoline and highly polluting kerosene. Of all possible fuels, CNG releases the smallest amounts of particulate matter.
Indian firefighters battle air pollution in New Delhi
Indian firefighters battle air pollution in New Delhi
- A government advisory asked people to avoid jogging and use masks
- India’s air pollution comes mostly from diesel fuel-burning vehicles, coal-fired power plants and crop burning
130 kidnapped Nigerian schoolchildren freed: government
- The religiously diverse African country of 230 million people is the scene of myriad conflicts that have killed both Christians and Muslims
ABUJA: Nigerian authorities have secured the release of 130 kidnapped schoolchildren taken by gunmen from a Catholic school in November, a presidential spokesman said Sunday, after 100 were freed earlier this month.
“Another 130 abducted Niger state pupils released, none left in captivity,” Sunday Dare said in a post on X, accompanied by a photo of smiling children.
In late November, hundreds of students and staff were kidnapped from St. Mary’s co-educational boarding school in north-central Niger state.
The attack came as the country buckled under a wave of mass abductions reminiscent of the infamous 2014 Boko Haram kidnapping of schoolgirls in Chibok.
The west African country suffers from multiple interlinked security concerns, from jihadists in the northeast to armed “bandit” gangs in the northwest.
A UN source told AFP that “the remaining set of girls/secondary school students will be taken to Minna,” the capital of Niger state, on Tuesday.
The exact number of those kidnapped, and those who remain in captivity, has been unclear since the attack on the school, located in the rural hamlet of Papiri.
The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) said 315 students and staff were kidnapped.
Some 50 escaped immediately afterwards, and on December 7 the government secured the release of around 100.
That would leave about 165 thought to remain in captivity.
But a statement from President Bola Tinubu at the time put the remaining people being held at 115.
- Spate of mass kidnappings -
It has not been made public who seized the children from their boarding school, or how the government secured their release.
Though kidnappings for ransom are a common way for criminals and armed groups to make quick cash, a spate of mass abductions in November put an uncomfortable spotlight on Nigeria’s already grim security situation.
Assailants across the country kidnapped two dozen Muslim schoolgirls, 38 church worshippers and a bride and her bridesmaids, with farmers, women and children also taken hostage.
The kidnappings came as Nigeria faces a diplomatic offensive from the United States, where President Donald Trump has alleged that there were mass killings of Christians that amounted to a “genocide.”
The Nigerian government and independent analysts reject that framing, which has long been used by the Christian right in the United States and Europe.
The religiously diverse African country of 230 million people is the scene of myriad conflicts that have killed both Christians and Muslims.
