AQI shoots up to 272; many residents complain of cold, cough and even fever

For the fourth day running, Chennaiites woke up to grey skies and a thick haze.

The levels of particulate matter of size less than 2.5 microns (PM2.5), a major pollutant, shot up further on Thursday with the Central Pollution Control Board’s air quality index (AQI) reading 272 at 4 p.m.

On Sunday, the AQI was 148 points; on Monday it was 260; on Tuesday 231 and on Wednesday 229. From Monday, the AQI has been poor due to high levels of PM2.5 in the city’s ambient air.

Worse by the evening

The AQI is the average of the major pollutant PM2.5 in the last 24 hours, recorded by the four continuous air monitoring stations at Velachery, Manali (CPCB and TNPCB), and Alandur. Though in the morning, Chennai’s AQI was 261, which was higher than Delhi’s 248 and had been tweeted out by a popular weather blogger, by the evening, Delhi climbed up to 309, which is very poor.

Many residents complained of cold, cough and even fever due to the high levels of pollution in the city. P. Antony of Perambur said that he had a headache and had developed a cold too due to the weather. “If it is hot or raining, our bodies know to adjust to such conditions. But not to this haze. Even psychologically, it is depressing. hopefully it will get better soon,” he said.

Anna Nagar resident T. K. Pandian said that garden dust, road cuts and incomplete construction works added to the spike in pollution over the last few days. “Few city roads have been relaid in the past six months and sweeping also is not done in interior roads. Only some bus route roads get special attention,” he said.

‘Rare occurrence’

On the sudden increase in pollution levels, Sarath Guttikunda, founder, Urban Emissions, said the small bump in the pollution levels over Chennai, for a couple of days, could be because of the aged mass of pollution from all of the Indo-Gangetic plain. “This is a very rare occurrence. It travelled over Bay of Bengal and circled over to the mainland in the southeast with the help of strong winds from Cyclone Bulbul,” he explained.