Air quality in the Indian holy city of Varanasi is the most toxic in the country according to research that reveals the extent of the pollution crisis across northern India.
According to data from the Central Pollution Control Board, Varanasi and Allahabad, both located in India’s largest and most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, did not record a single day of good air quality in the more than 220 days that measurements were taken.
The report’s lead author, Aishwarya Madineni, said the levels recorded in Varanasi appeared to regularly breach 150, when the air is classified as unhealthy and begins to affect the general population.
Levels of coarser particles finer than 10 micro-metres were triple the safe limit in 2016 and had increased by more than one-third since 2010, the research showed.
Allahabad and Delhi were also listed as suffering from toxic levels of fine pollution in the WHO report but Varanasi was not measured.
The pollution’s cause in Varanasi is a mix of dust kicked up by traffic and construction sites, vehicular and industrial emissions, smoke from private diesel generators and open fires lit by poorer residents.
Among six cities in Uttar Pradesh highlighted in the report, only two, Kanpur and Agra, had more than 12 good air quality days each year.