New Delhi 'a gas chamber'… schools close as pollution chokes India's capital

"숨을 못쉬겠다"… 기준치 40배 초미세먼지에 덮인 뉴델리, 시내 6천여 개 초•중•고교를 휴교
New Delhi, home to more than 17 million people, has been bestowed with the unwelcome tag of being the world's most polluted city in recent years.
This week, the Indian capital's chief minister called the city a "gas chamber",… as pollution levels reached over 40 times the World Health Organization's safe limit.
Won Jung-hwan has more.

The New Delhi government is being urged to declare a city-wide health emergency as residents endured a third straight day of heavy pollution since Tuesday morning.
Thick gray clouds of smoke have engulfed the city, and air quality readings have soared up to a peak of 9-hundred-99 micrograms per cubic meter, the highest level that the instruments can measure.
One of the health officials said that the level is similar to smoking 50 cigarettes a day.

The readings measure the concentration of fine particulate matter, or PM 2.5, which is considered particularly harmful because the particles are small enough to lodge deep into the lungs and pass into other parts of the body, causing serious health risks.

New Delhi is considered one of the worst cities in the world for air pollution due to factors such as vehicle emissions and dust from construction sites.
But experts also pointed out that air quality often nosedives around this time of year,... as smoke from fireworks set off during Diwali festivals and from crop burnings remains in the air as there's hardly any wind.

Last November, about a million children were forced to stay home from school as India's capital struggled with its worst pollution for nearly 20 years.
On Wednesday, the New Delhi government again took the step of closing of more than six-thousand schools until Sunday.

The Indian authorities have provided the public with air quality updates since 2014, but have so far not implemented strong measures to tackle the problem, such as temporarily banning cars according to the severity of the air pollution.
Authorities are floating the idea of introducing an 'odd-even program', which cars with odd or even numbered license plates can use roads on alternating days.
Won Jung-hwan, Arirang News.

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