In the News
April 15, 2024
The air quality in Dhaka remained poor even during the Eid and Pahela Baishakh holidays when a massive number of people left the capital, significantly reducing vehicular movement and construction and production activities.
On Monday, Dhaka ranked second worst in the list of cities worldwide measuring air quality, which the green activists explained as very unusual.
Dhaka’s air quality index score was 193 at 9:00am, indicating its second position from below.
India’s Delhi, China’s Beijing and Nepal’s Kathmandu occupied the first, third and fourth worst spots on the list, with AQI scores of 207, 193 and 175, respectively.
An AQI between 101 and 200 is considered ‘unhealthy’, while an AQI between 201 and 300 is said to be ‘poor’, while a reading from 301 to 400 is considered ‘hazardous’, posing serious health risks to residents.
The Centre for Atmospheric Pollution Studies founding director professor Ahmad Kamruzzaman Majumder said that usually the air quality improves during public holiday like Eid as vehicular movement reduces and construction and production sectors remain largely shut. But this year during the holidays, Dhaka remained as one of the top polluted cities in the world.
‘Low pressure of wind and extreme hit wave might create the situation,’ he suspects.
His organisation’s analysis found that during the Eid-ul-Fitr holidays this year, the average air quality in Dhaka was 190, with the highest measurement at AQI 205 on April 10 followed by 204 on April 11.
Dhaka has long been grappling with air pollution with its air quality turning unhealthy in winter and improving during the monsoon….
…A global study released in August 2023 by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago found Bangladesh air to be the most polluted in the world, which gravely impacts citizens’ health and reduces their average life expectancy by at least 6.8 years.
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University respiratory medicine professor Mohammed Atiqur Rahman said that air pollution is directly responsible for respiratory diseases, while it aggravates many other diseases and increases the co-morbidity of patients.
Asthma, pneumonia, tuberculosis, bronchitis, skin diseases, diarrhoea and conjunctivitis are among the diseases triggered or aggravated by air pollution, he said.
‘Air pollution affects everyone to some extent,’ he said.
According to the Chicago University study titled Air Quality Life Index (AQLI), air pollution is the second-largest threat to human health for people living in Bangladesh, behind only cardiovascular diseases.