Day after Diwali, Delhi ranked world's most polluted city: Report

Air pollution levels skyrocketed in New Delhi and left the national capital shrouded in toxic smog as millions of people set off firecrackers on Wednesday evening during Diwali.

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The air quality index, or AQI, hit 980 at 4.30am on Thursday, according to website AirVisual, which monitors air pollution around the world. The levels surged as people violated the Supreme Court order and burst firecrackers before and after the designated two-hour window. Readings below 50 are considered safe, while anything above 300 is considered hazardous.

The air quality in the morning was just about as bad as it was in 2017 a day after Diwali, when levels exceeded 1,000, roughly ten times worse than the air pollution in Beijing. The levels on Thursday afternoon came down from their peak, with the gauge reading a “very unhealthy” 244 as of 2.30pm. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had described the city as a “gas chamber” after the smog last year.

Toxic air is estimated to kill more than 1 million Indians each year, according to the nonprofit Health Effects Institute.

New Delhi was ranked the most polluted city in the world on Thursday, according to AirVisual’s global rankings. Lahore in Pakistan was at second place with AQI at 273 as of 8am local time. By comparison, New York had readings of just 29 as of 10pm on Wednesday local time.

With different air quality monitors showing varied readings across the national capital, it was still clear that New Delhi’s air was the worst in the world.

Levels of dangerous PM 2.5 - the fine, inhalable particles that lodge deep in the lungs, where they can enter the bloodstream - were pushing close to 1,400 in some parts of the city early Thursday morning, according to a website run by the Delhi Pollution Control Committee, a government agency.