CHENNAI: Chennai air quality deteriorated dramatically under smoggy weather conditions on Monday. At 4 pm, the Air Quality Index (AQI) for Chennai peaked to 160, which falls under “moderately polluted” category and may cause breathing discomfort to people with lung disease such as asthma, and discomfort to people with heart disease, children and older adults.
The Ambient Air Quality Monitoring systems of Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) continuously flagged ‘yellow alert’, a colour code, for the most part of the day indicating ‘poor’ air quality.
The monitoring station at Manali showed PM 2.5 concentration levels spiking as high as 301 µg/m3 (micrograms per cubic meter), the 24-hour average being 233. Alandur and Velachery stations also recorded AQI of 120, where the prominent pollutant was PM 2.5, which is a tiny particulate matter of diameter 2.5 or less than 2.5 microns that can enter deep into the lungs. The National Ambient Air Quality (NAAQ) standard for PM 2.5 is 60 µg/m3.
N Puviarasan of Regional Meteorological Centre told Express that the reason for a spike in pollution levels can be attributed to the lack of winds and low temperature. “The current wind pattern of northeasterly will be bringing industrial emissions from Ennore directly into the city and there is pollution from vehicles, construction activity and road dust. All these pollutants circulate at surface level in the absence of wind and cold weather,” he said. Smoggy conditions may worsen with pollution from Bhogi bonfires on Tuesday morning, which though discouraged, is expected to engulf the city.
When contacted, the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) member secretary D Sekar also blamed it on weather.
Sekar said pollution levels may further spike under similar conditions till January 17.
Sekhar said ahead of Bhogi, 30 monitoring teams have been formed to ensure that the burning of waste materials such as old rubber products, plastics, tyres, tubes etc is stopped.
Air quality is measured in 15 areas in the city and the data will be published on the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board website on the day of Bhogi.
“On the day of bhogi, which falls on Tuesday, TNPCB teams, jointly with the police department would conduct night patrolling. Last year, more than 100 waste tyres which was kept for setting ablaze were seized. It will be sent to Common Hazardous Waste Management facility at Gummidipoondi,” an official said.
