Noida, Ghaziabad suffer ‘severe’ air for the third day

Local emissions and weather conditions kept the city air quality under “severe” category for the third day in row. On Thursday, the three cities, namely Greater

Local emissions and weather conditions kept the city air quality under “severe” category for the third day in row. On Thursday, the three cities, namely Greater Noida, Ghaziabad and Noida, remained the most polluted cities of the country like a day earlier.

HT Image

According to the weather analysts, while there is no external sources of pollution in the city, the ventilation is low due to limited wind time of low speed. With the pollution levels well over six to seven times the safe standards, the three cities remained under “severe” category despite marginal improvement since past 24 hours.

According to the Central Pollution Control Board’s (CPCB) bulletin, the air quality index (AQI) of Noida on a scale of 0 to 500, on Thursday was 441 — the third worse in country as against 462 on Wednesday and 437 on Tuesday.

Greater Noida’s AQI was 448, as against 476 on Wednesday and 450 on Tuesday. It was the worst polluted city. The AQI of Ghaziabad, the second-most polluted city, was 440 as against 472 on Wednesday and 458 on Tuesday.

According to the IMD, the city is not getting enough winds to disperse the pollutants. The city, according to the experts, is receiving winds between 11am to 4.30pm, while the winds go calmer for the rest of the day. Due to this the pollutants trapped in the atmosphere.

“Thursday saw maximum wind speed of about 10 kmph between 11am and 4.30pm. The wind speed may increase towards slightly by 2kmph on Friday, which may marginally improve the air quality. The city is also seeing higher humidity levels of around 100 to 95% and lower temperatures — both the conditions are suitable to trap the pollutants,” said said Kuldeep Srivastava, head, regional weather forecasting centre, IMD.

The fine particles or pollutants PM2.5 levels spiked from twice on Sunday to seven times higher than the standards sine Wednesday , continuing on Thursday.

On Thursday, PM2.5 for past 24-hours in Noida was recorded at 350.18 microgrammes per cubic metres against 405.18 microgrammes per cubic metres on Wednesday and 347.63 microgrammes per cubic metres on Tuesday.

The PM2.5 for Greater Noida was 355.48 microgrammes per cubic metres against 438.17 microgrammes per cubic metres on Wednesday and 368.41 microgrammes per cubic metres on Tuesday.

The PM2.5 levels for Ghaziabad on Thursday was 364.56 microgrammes per cubic metres against 449.69 on Wednesday and 389.73 microgrammes per cubic metres on Tuesday. The safe limit for PM2.5 is 60 units.

According to the system of air quality and weather forecasting and research (SAFAR), the AQI is likely to improve slightly. “Under the calm wind-cold conditions, low ventilation has halted the dispersion of accumulated pollutant. However, better ventilation condition is forecasted for the next two days. Hence, AQI is forecasted to improve to the higher end of the very poor category by 25th Dec and likely to further improve to the middle-end of Very Poor on 26th and 27th Dec (sic),” said the SAFAR statement on Thursday.