Delhi has choked all its way to become the most polluted city in the world on Saturday, according to the day's Air Quality Index (AQI) released by Skymet. The national capital, which has seen hazy, itchy days since Diwali, topped the cities across the world with an AQI of 527 and continues to be in 'severe' category.
Two other Indian cities—Kolkata (fifth) and Mumbai (ninth)—also figured in the list of top 10 polluted cities as per Saturday's AQI. The AQI of Kolkata and Mumbai are at 161 and 153 respectively.
Lahore (234) was placed second on the list, followed by Tashkent (185) and Karachi (180) at fourth. At the same time, China’s pollution levels have seen an improvement to the extent that it only comes at the sixth spot with Chengdu’s AQI at 158. Hanoi in Vietnam ranked seventh with AQI being 158, Guangzhou is eighth with AQI at 157. Mumbai is in the ninth with an AQI of 153 and Kathmandu in Nepal is at the tenth spot at 152.
New #AQI rankings, #Delhi 1st 527, 2nd #Lahore 234, 3rd #Tashkent 185, 4th #Karachi 180, 5th #Kolkata 161, 6th #Chengdu 158, #Hanoi 7th 158, #Guangzhou 8th 157, #Mumbai 9th 153, #Kathmandu 10th 152.#AirPollution #airqualityindex #DelhiNCRPollution https://t.co/0kEoT2p9fi
— SkymetAQI (@SkymetAQI) November 15, 2019
In Delhi, the air quality had been in the hazardous range for nine days, also the longest hazardous air quality spell since records began. The air quality index (AQI) in Delhi at 8.40 am on Saturday stood at 412 against an AQI of 467 at 10 am on Friday. The AQI in Faridabad was 427, Ghaziabad 424, Greater Noida 377, Noida 411 and Gurgaon 420.
An AQI between 201 and 300 is considered 'poor', 301-400 'very poor' and 401-500 'severe'.
The national capital recorded a minimum temperature of 16.1 degrees Celsius while humidity was 82 per cent.
