As Delhi overtakes Beijing as the most polluted city on earth, its citizens are fighting to breathe.
The city of New Delhi is choking, and there’s no end—or much else—in sight. Although residents of the Indian capital are used to polluted air, particularly in the cooler months when people light their stoves for heat, this winter it reached a level that even Delhiites could not have prepared for. In November, after six days of heavy smog smothering the city, the Indian government declared an emergency, temporarily closing schools, construction sites and coal-fired power stations. The hashtag #myrighttobreathe trended on Twitter, as citizens called for government action.
Things had deteriorated quickly after October, when thousands of farmers in the nearby state of Punjab burned straw left over from their rice harvests, blowing smoke toward Delhi. At the end of the month, during the Hindu festival of Diwali, residents set off celebratory firecrackers against the advice of the government, making the pollution even worse. The day after Diwali, photojournalist and Delhi resident Zacharie Rabehi said the smog was so dense that “I couldn’t see my hand at the end of my arm.”
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