Lahore once again declared world’s most polluted city

LAHORE: Once again, the provincial metropolis came on top of the world’s ten most polluted cities with an Air Quality Index (AQI) of 196 here on Wednesday.

Data collected from IQAir revealed that Beijing, China was second in the list with an AQI of 173 and Shenyang, China was third with an AQI of 168.

Rest of the top ten cities included New Delhi, India with an AQI of 168, Hanoi, Vietnam with an AQI of 164, Karachi, Pakistan with an AQI of 161, Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina with an AQI of 160, Bratislava, Slovakia with an AQI of 159, Chengdu, China with an AQI of 158 and Seoul, South Korea with an AQI of 158.

It is pertinent to mention here that Environmental Protection Department (EPD) didn’t release AQI of the city for the last two days.

On the other hand, Met officials said that a westerly wave was affecting upper

and central parts of the country.

They predicted that dry weather was expected in most parts of the country while isolated rain-wind/thunderstorm (snow over hilly areas) was expected in upper Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit-Baltistan and Kashmir.

Rainfall was recorded at several cities including Kalam, Dir, Pattan, Malam Jabba, Mirkhani, Chitral, Parachinar, Balakot, Drosh, Kakul, Cherat, Rawalakot, Muzaffarabad, Garhi Dupatta, Murree, Sialkot, Chakwal, Hafizabad, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Gujrat, Khuzdar, Quetta, Kalat, Gupis and Babusar.

Wednesday’s lowest minimum temperature was recorded at Leh where mercury dropped down to -03°C while in Lahore it was 16.9°C and maximum was 26.9°C.