Residents of the national capital woke up to dangerously polluted air on Tuesday as a thick blanket of fog and haze enveloped the city, pushing air quality levels deep into the severe category.
The Air Quality Index (AQI) crossed 400 at 27 monitoring stations across Delhi, while several locations slipped into the even more alarming severe-plus range.
At 9 am, Delhi’s overall AQI stood at 415, a sharp deterioration from the very poor category recorded a day earlier, data from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) showed.
Of the 40 air quality monitoring stations in the city, more than two-thirds reported AQI levels above 400, a threshold associated with serious health risks, particularly for children, the elderly, and those with respiratory or cardiac conditions.
Five areas recorded severe-plus pollution, with Anand Vihar emerging as the worst-affected location at an AQI of 470. Other hotspots included Nehru Nagar (463), Okhla (459), Mundka (459), and Siri Fort (450), as per readings available on the CPCB’s SAMEER app.
Adverse weather conditions further aggravated the situation. Dense fog significantly reduced visibility across the city during the early morning hours.
Palam recorded visibility as low as 50 metres at 8 am under dense fog, accompanied by west-southwesterly winds blowing at a speed of 5 kmph. Safdarjung reported visibility of 100 metres with calm wind conditions at the same time.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said Delhi’s minimum temperature dropped to 8.8 degrees Celsius, about 1.3 degrees above the seasonal average. The maximum temperature is expected to hover around 23 degrees Celsius.
The weather office has forecast dense fog conditions to prevail through the day, which could further hinder dispersion of pollutants.