Chennai: Residents of Chennai woke up today with smoggy skies as people across the city celebrated Bhogi by lightning a bonfire marking the beginning of the four-day Pongal festival.
The Air Quality Index (AQI) got affected at many localities drastically. At the time of writing this article, the global air quality monitoring network aqicn.org recorded Manali as ”Hazardous” at 416 and Velacheri recorded ”Very Unhealthy” at 212.
According to the AQI, the scale between 201 to 300 is marked ”Very Unhealthy” with a cautionary statement as, ”Active children and adults, and people with respiratory disease, such as asthma, should avoid all outdoor exertion; everyone else, especially children, should limit outdoor exertion.”
As for scale above 300, it is termed, ”Hazardous” with cautionary measure as, ”Everyone should avoid all outdoor exertion”.
In a bid to create awareness among the public, Tamilnadu Pollution Control Board had released a short video, ”Smoke Free Bhogi”, were in professor of medicine and senior consultant physician at the Government Chengalpattu Medical College, Dr C S Gauthaman speaks on the harmful effects of smog.
According to reports, TNPCB has formed teams to ensure that burning of waste materials like plastic or tyres are stopped. Apart from causing health hazards, smog also affects visibility making flights difficult to land or vehicles to move on roads.