The onset of the monsoon over Bangladesh has brought some good news for the residents of Dhaka gasping for clean air, reports UNB.
The air quality of the densely populated metropolis has now improved from 'unhealthy' to ‘moderate’ category.
India’s Delhi, Chile’s Santiago, and Pakistan’s Lahore occupied the first, second and third spots, with AQI scores of 179, 157, and 144, respectively, in the list.
An AQI between 50 and 100 is considered ‘moderate’ with an acceptable air quality however; there may be a moderate health concern for a very small number of people who are unusually sensitive to air pollution.
An AQI between 151and 200 is considered 'unhealthy' for everyone and members of sensitive groups may experience more serious health effects. Similarly, an AQI between 201 and 300 is said to be 'poor', while a reading of 301 to 400 is considered 'hazardous', posing serious health risks to residents.
AQI, an index for reporting daily air quality, is used by government agencies to inform people how clean or polluted the air of a certain city is.
With the advent of winter, the city’s air quality starts deteriorating sharply due to the massive discharge of pollutant particles from construction work, rundown roads, brick kilns and other sources.
As per the World Health Organization (WHO), air pollution kills an estimated seven million people worldwide every year, largely as a result of increased mortality from stroke, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer and acute respiratory infections.
