Cracker bursting breaks spell of good air in Delhi

Amid the Covid-19 outbreak, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had urged people to come out to their balconies and light candles, earthen lamps or torch lights for nine minutes at 9pm on Sunday to show their support for the government’s fight against the disease.

At 9pm on Sunday, Delhi’s 13-day spell of good air days was broken. A sudden spurt in firecracker burning on Sunday, coupled with low wind speed, pushed the city’s air quality further into the ‘moderate’ category on Monday.

People burst crackers in a show of solidarity and support for frontline workers, on day twelve of the nationwide lockdown to combat coronavirus. (Raj K Raj/Hindustan Times)

While environment experts said that the situation could have been worse if such unprecedented cracker bursting had happened in “normal circumstances”, authorities are ascertaining how large quantities of crackers were procured by people during the lockdown.

Amid the Covid-19 outbreak, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had urged people to come out to their balconies and light candles, earthen lamps or torch lights for nine minutes at 9pm on Sunday to show their support for the government’s fight against the disease. However, on Sunday evening, while lamps glowed, the sound of firecrackers also echoed across the city.

As per the data, the overall air quality index (AQI) of Delhi on Monday was recorded 142, up from Sunday’s 102, in the lower-end of ‘moderate’ zone. On Saturday, the AQI was 87 (‘satisfactory’), as recorded by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).

By 4.30pm on Monday, the AQI at many stations in Delhi had slipped to the ‘poor’ category. Monitoring stations at Rohini, Wazirpur and Vivek Vihar recorded AQI levels above 200 at 4.30 pm.

Since March 24, the air quality levels in the national Capital have consistently remained in the ‘satisfactory’ zone, and had even improved to ‘good’, with an AQI of 45 on March 28.

Experts said that assessing real-time air pollution, the spike in the pollution levels between 9pm and 10pm on Sunday was somewhat similar to that seen in the early hours of Diwali night. If such cracker burning activity had happened in regular circumstances, with vehicles plying and industries operating, under similar weather conditions, the AQI would have dipped considerably, experts said.

A senior CPCB official said that since cracker burning was consistent across the city and was the only polluting activity that happened, its impact on air quality was noticeable.

“Since these circumstances are not normal and everything else is shut, the AQI levels remained in the moderate zone. The problem was that even the wind speed was not strong enough to neutralise the impact of cracker bursting. But Sunday’s cracker burning was more like a freak episode, which authorities were not anticipating. We can attribute the spike in pollution solely to cracker bursting because nothing else is happening,” the official said.

Weathermen said that the wind speeds were low through Saturday, Sunday and until Monday afternoon.

“The winds were calm on Sunday night and it was only by Monday morning that it improved to reach around five to six kilometres per hour (kmph). By Monday afternoon, the wind speed picked up to reach around 15kmph. This was not enough to blow away the pollution caused by yesterday’s (Sunday) cracker burning,” said Kuldeep Srivastava, head of IMD’s regional weather forecasting centre.

Srivastava said that the wind speed will pick up from Monday night. There is also a forecast of rain and thunderstorm on Tuesday, which is likely to improve air quality to acceptable levels.

Delhi Pollution Control Committee’s (DPCC) hourly average data on particulate matter levels shows that at 9pm on Sunday, PM 2.5 (ultrafine particulate matter with diameter less than 2.5 micrometres) levels in Delhi’s air was 48.1ug/m3. This spiked to 49.5ug/m3 at 10pm and gradually to 57ug/m3 by 6am on Monday.

Delhi Police officials said that considering that the city is under lockdown and only the sale of essential commodities is being permitted, chances are that the crackers that were burnt on Sunday night were hoarded by people since last Diwali. Senior officials said that no action was taken against cracker bursting. Officials also confirmed that no permission requests were received by them for licences to sell crackers over the last few weeks.

“All shops selling non-essential commodities are shut and our teams are continuously monitoring areas. The crackers that were burst last night could be what people saved from Diwali,” said MS Randhawa, Delhi Police spokesperson.

Wholesale cracker dealers said that sale has been completely shut during the lockdown. Narendra Gupta, president of fireworks and general traders association in Sadar Bazar, said that permanent vendors had also stopped distribution and sales. “Nobody had anticipated that there would be a call from the Prime Minister to light candles, let alone cracker bursting,” said Gupta.