As smog continues to blanket various parts of the country amid a worsening pollution crisis, Karachi’s air quality dropped to “very unhealthy” for the first time.
The port city recorded an Air Quality Index (AQI) value of 212 , placing it at the top of the global pollution rankings by Swiss air monitoring organization IQAir.
At around 9:20 a.m., the concentration of toxic PM2.5 particles in Karachi’s air was 27.4 times higher than the World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommended safe levels.
This marked the first instance where the city’s air quality breached the “very unhealthy” threshold of 200 on the AQI scale, though briefly. However, a slight improvement later saw the AQI drop to 194.
IQAir attributes Karachi’s air pollution to factors such as the large number of vehicles, the burning of waste, and emissions from factories.
In the meantime, Lahore ranked as the world’s second-most polluted city, with an AQI of 298 — just below the “hazardous” category. New Delhi, India, claimed the top spot for global air pollution.
