CAPITAL CATASTROPHE

Air deteriorates deep into severe zone, readings nearly max out at monitoring stations across city

- Jasjeev Gandhiok

Every silhouette was blurred, every blink painful, and every breath toxic. The national capital was trapped in a dome of grey on Friday with the already thick, toxic air turning more noxious as the city's pollution worsened to one of its most dangerous levels ever recorded.

Delhi's air quality index (AQI) deteriorated to 468, a reading deep in the "severe" category that underlined the abject collapse and failure of all administrative efforts to snuff out a hazard that plays itself out with clockwork precision every November.

The air leaves even healthy residents of Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) susceptible to serious long-term illnesses, while the outlook is even more bleak for children, the elderly, and people with existing illnesses.

Friday's AQI was a sharp deterioration from 392 at 4pm a day ago, and the worst since 471 on November 12, 2021-only underlining how little has changed over the years.

The AQI last year peaked at 450 on November 3. In fact, the air quality on Friday was briefly at its worst level in three years,  as the AQI plunged to 475 at noon, the most toxic since November 10, 2020 (476).

A deadly concoction of factors together enmeshed to drop a sooty shroud on the city.

Northwesterly winds, blowing towards Delhi from Punjab and Haryana, brought with them dark, toxic plumes of smoke from simmering paddy fields.

According to the Union Ministry of earth sciences' Decision Support System which provides estimates of the constituents of Delhi's pollution - farm fire smoke was responsible for just about 35% of the city's PM2.5 (ultra-fine particles).