Smoke enveloped Pakistan’s Lahore again, and its citizens were growing desperate.
Lahore:
Residents have red eyes, everything is smoky, cars have headlights on during the day. Smoke enveloped Pakistan’s Lahore again, and its citizens were growing desperate.
The megacity of nearly 11 million people near the border with India was once the former capital of the Mughal Empire and remains the cultural epicenter of Pakistan.
But now it regularly ranks among the worst cities in the world for air pollution – a mixture of low-grade diesel fumes, smoke from burned seasonal crops and cold winter temperatures. than condensing into stagnant clouds.
Syed Hasnain was clearly exhausted as he waited for his four-year-old son to be hospitalized at the city’s Mayo Clinic.
“He had a cough, couldn’t breathe and had a high temperature. We thought it might be the coronavirus so we took him to the hospital. But the doctors told us he had pneumonia because of the fog. smoke,” said exhausted-looking Hasnain. AFP.
“It’s very disturbing,” he admitted. “I knew that smog could be bad for health – but I didn’t know it would be so bad that my son had to be hospitalized.”
Teachers also worry about the children.
“Pollution is a problem even in the classroom. We see children with red and itchy eyes, others who are constantly coughing,” Nadia Sarwar, a government school teacher, told AFP.
One child, who had asthma, had to stay home for several days because of constant attacks, she said.
Across the border, Delhi has closed schools until the end of the month because of severe pollution.
But Sarwar says it will be difficult to do the same in Lahore.
Kids have missed out a lot thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, and closing schools now will cost them “a problem they didn’t create.”
“I feel bad for them,” she said. “In the summer, it’s too hot here for outdoor activities. And in the winter, pollution and dengue fever now. What can a child do? Where can he go?”
– ‘No one cares’ –
Adults also work hard. Rana Bibi, a 39-year-old mother of three who works as a sweeper, uses her shawl (shawl) as a face covering while waiting for a rickshaw to drive her home.
“The smoke hurt my eyes and throat. That’s why I had to cover my face this way. First they made us do it because of corona (virus), but now I’m doing it myself. “, she said.
“When I get home, I always smell smoke; clothes, hair and hands are dirty. But what can one do? I can’t sit at home. I’m used to it.”
Some of the homes she cleans “have these air cleaners. I don’t know. That’s what they told me. But there’s smoke everywhere.”
In recent years, people have built homemade air purifiers and filed lawsuits against government officials in an effort to clean the air.
However, authorities have been slow to act, blaming India or saying the numbers are exaggerated.
“Every year we read in the news that Lahore is the most polluted city or it has the worst smog in the world,” said Saira Aslam, who works in the human resources department of a technology company. Nothing happened. No one cared.”
The 27-year-old said angrily: “The government took care of this last year because we are all sitting at home due to the lockdown. But they can’t continue to act like there’s nothing wrong,” she said. speak.
“I have elderly people at home who are literally in danger from the smoke. It’s a health hazard and should be treated like one.”
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)
