Toxic air continues to grip Delhi; AQI 'severe' at 418 amid spike in farm fires

The national capital continued to breathe toxic air on Wednesday with pollution levels remaining ‘severe' for the second straight day at 418, as stubble-burning in the neighbouring regions contributed most to Delhi's foul air.

Delhi's Air Quality Index (AQI) remained ‘severe' with the 24-hour average recorded at 418 at 4 pm, according to Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) data.

A ‘severe' AQI poses serious health risks even to healthy individuals, and can affect those with existing respiratory or cardiac conditions badly.

According to the Decision Support System (DSS) data, stubble-burning contributed 22.4 per cent to Delhi's PM2.5 concentration on Wednesday – the highest share from farm fires recorded so far this winter.

The share of pollution transported from outside the city stood at 15.5 per cent, the DSS data showed.

Delhi recorded its first ‘severe' air quality day of the season on Tuesday, with the overall AQI reaching 428. The air quality, which had been ‘very poor' for several days, deteriorated further due to stagnant weather conditions and local emissions.

The CPCB classifies an AQI between 0 and 50 as ‘good', 51-100 ‘satisfactory', 101-200 ‘moderate', 201-300 ‘poor', 301-400 ‘very poor', and 401-500 ‘severe'.

For Thursday, stubble-burning is projected to contribute around 10.1 per cent to Delhi's PM2.5 levels, while transport-related emissions are expected to increase slightly to 19.3 per cent, according to DSS projections.

Satellite-based data showed 312 farm fire incidents in Punjab, 72 in Haryana and 322 in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday.

According to the Air Quality Early Warning System (AQEWS) for Delhi, the air quality is likely to remain in the ‘very poor' category from Thursday onwards.

On the weather front, temperatures continued to dip, with the minimum on Wednesday recorded at 10.4 degrees Celsius, 3.1 notches below normal, and the maximum at 27.7 degrees Celsius, 0.8 notch below normal.

For Thursday, the weather department has forecast shallow fog in the morning, with the maximum and minimum temperatures likely to settle around 26 and 11 degrees Celsius, respectively.