Pollution emergency: Centre plans to spray water over capital to combat smog
The central government plans to spray water over the national capital to try to combat toxic smog that has triggered pollution emergency, officials said on Friday. “Sprinkling water is the only way to bring down the dangerous pollution levels,” said Shruti Bhardwaj, the environment ministry's most senior official in charge of monitoring air quality. At about a height of 100 meters the government is finalizing to spray the water from, which would be unprecedented, she said, without saying how much of the city of 22 million people would be covered. The thick blanket of grey air and pollutants has engulfed Delhi for the past four days. A US embassy measure of tiny particulate matter, called PM 2.5, showed a reading of 523 at 9 am on Friday — the outer limit of "good" air is 50. PM 2.5 is about 30 times finer than a human hair. The particles can be inhaled deep into the lungs, causing heart attacks, strokes, lung cancer and respiratory diseases. Commercial trucks are now banned from the city unless they are transporting essential commodities and the Delhi transport department said it re-introduced an “odd-even” scheme under which cars with licence plates ending in an odd number are allowed one day and even-numbered cars the next day. -PTC News
