NEW DELHI: Authorities in the smog-ridden Indian capital New Delhi on Sunday extended an emergency schools closure by a week, with no signs of improvement in the megacity’s choking levels of pollution.
Every autumn New Delhi is blanketed in acrid smog, primarily blamed on stubble-burning by farmers in the neighboring agrarian states.
The city is regularly ranked as one of the most polluted on the planet, with its annual smog blamed for hundreds of thousands of premature deaths each year.
“As pollution levels continue to remain high, primary schools in Delhi will stay closed till 10th November,” Delhi state’s education minister Atishi posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Secondary schools “are being given the option of shifting to online classes” added Atishi, who uses only one name, after days of high pollution levels.
The Indian capital — which has a population of 30 million — once again ranked as the world’s most polluted city Sunday, according to monitoring firm IQAir.
Delhi state annually imposes restrictions on construction activities and orders some vehicles off roads when pollution reaches severe levels.
But critics say that governments wilfully ignore the agricultural primary source of the public health crisis.
The farmers in neighboring states are a powerful electoral lobby and elected leaders have long resisted calls to impose strict fines and other punitive measures on them for their actions.
New Delhi is set to host a cricket World Cup match on Monday between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
But both teams canceled their scheduled pre-match training sessions in recent days over health risks from the smog.
Severe smog levels are expected to persist for several more weeks.
Levels of the most dangerous PM2.5 particles — so tiny they can enter the bloodstream — reached 570 micrograms per cubic meter on Sunday according to IQAir, nearly 40 times the daily maximum recommended by the World Health Organization.
A Lancet study in 2020 attributed 1.67 million deaths to air pollution in India during the previous year, including almost 17,500 in the capital.
And the average city resident could die nearly 12 years earlier than expected due to air pollution, according to an August report by the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute.
India is heavily reliant on polluting coal for energy generation, resisting calls to phase it out, and its per capita coal emissions have risen 29 percent in the past seven years.
Smog-ridden Indian capital extends schools shutdown
https://arab.news/v76df
Smog-ridden Indian capital extends schools shutdown
- Every autumn New Delhi is blanketed in acrid smog, primarily blamed on stubble-burning by farmers
- Critics say that governments wilfully ignore the agricultural primary source of the public health crisis
Philippines discovers new gas deposit to boost depleted reserves
- Source near Malampaya field believed to contain 2.8 billion cubic meters of gas
- It will not take much time to access the gas, expert says, as infrastructure is ready
MANILA: The Philippines on Monday announced a new natural gas discovery, with the reservoir near the country’s largest offshore site estimated to be enough to power about 5.7 million households per year.
About 2.8 billion cubic meters (98 billion cubic feet) of gas were found 5km east of the Malampaya field near the island of Palawan, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said in a Facebook video.
“This is equivalent to nearly 14 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year. That means it could supply power to more than 5.7 million households, 9,500 buildings, or nearly 200,000 schools,” Marcos said.
“This helps Malampaya’s contribution and strengthens our domestic gas supply for many years to come. Initial testing showed that the well flowed at 60 million cubic feet (1.7 million cubic meters) per day.”
Malampaya, discovered in 1989 and operational since 2001, is the Philippines’ most important natural gas field, located off the west coast of Palawan Island. It is also a key part of the country’s energy infrastructure.
It supplies natural gas for electricity generation in Luzon, the main island of the Philippines, powering several major plants.
Prime Energy Resources Development, which manages the Malampaya project, said in a statement that the new reservoir, Malampaya East-1, was discovered by a “a fully Filipino-led team, reflecting the country’s growing capability in upstream energy development.”
Prime Energy’s well data indicate that Malampaya East-1 volumes are equivalent to about one-third of the remaining producible gas volumes at the original Malampaya.
Against the backdrop of Malampaya’s decline, it will help to secure the country’s gas supplies. It will also keep operational the expensive infrastructure that was installed to operate the legacy field.
“The original Malampaya was like 2.3 trillion cubic feet, so it’s like 4 percent of the original find. I still think that is significant in light of the decline of the Malampaya gas field,” said Alberto Dalusung III, energy transition adviser at the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities.
The new gas discovery benefits from ready access to processing facilities such as the 504 km undersea pipeline that was built for Malampaya, which will make it available sooner.
Dalusung estimated it would take up to two years for Filipino consumers to benefit from the new resources.
“The infrastructure is already there,” he said. “You don’t have to build the pipeline. All you have to do is find new gas resources, which we did.”
