DM Monitoring
Lahore has topped the global ranking of the world’s most polluted cities, recording an Air Quality Index (AQI) of 240, according to an international air quality monitoring website, as toxic air continues to shroud the provincial capital.
The air quality in Punjab’s capital is well within the range of “very unhealthy”, according to the Swiss air quality monitor’s data.
The city’s PM2.5 concentration, harmful airborne particles small enough to penetrate deep into the lungs, was 33 times the World Health Organisation’s annual guideline, IQAir said.
The website also recorded an AQI of 283 in Faisalabad, 245 in Peshawar and 228 in Gujranwala, highlighting poor air quality across several major cities.
Punjab authorities blamed poor air quality this week on pollution drifting from neighbouring India, where firecrackers set off during the Hindu festival of Diwali over the weekend blanketed much of the north in toxic smog.
Punjab Environment Protection Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb said light winds carried pollutants into the region from India after Diwali.
“However, air pollution is expected to gradually decrease from early afternoon as weather conditions improve and winds shift direction,” she said.
India’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
IQAir ranked Delhi the world’s second-most polluted major city on Tuesday, with an AQI of 188. Indian government data showed that firecrackers were responsible for nearly 55% of the PM2.5 in the Indian capital a day earlier.
Vehicle emissions, construction dust and smoke from crop-waste burning are also major contributors to winter pollution on both sides of the border.
Pakistan had similarly attributed its toxic air in 2024 to crop-waste burning in Indian Punjab, but officials from India’s weather department had said at the time that the wind direction meant the airflow was actually from Pakistan into India.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party has also blamed crop-waste burning in Indian Punjab — governed by a regional opposition party — for Delhi’s poor air quality this month. Local media reported a sevenfold increase in farm fires in the state on Sunday, when Diwali was celebrated.
Indian Punjab’s state government, however, says incidents of crop-waste burning have fallen compared with previous years.
