From respiratory problems to heart disease, global warming to acid rain, air pollution has a fatal impact on our environment and human health.

Can you guess which is the most polluted city in the world? You might answer “Beijing”, but in reality it is half polluted than the city at number one spot.

According to the most recent statistics by WHO, 13 out of top 20 most polluted cities in the world are from India. These stats are combined from observing more than 1,600 cities from 2008 to 2013.

Air pollution is measured with the density of fine particles suspended in the atmosphere. WHO advises that these fine particles of less than 2.5 mm in diameter should not exceed 10 ug/cubic meters.

Delhi, at number 1 spot in the list of most polluted cities in the world has 153 ug/m3 (micrograms per cubic meters of air). This is 6 times more than the recommend by World Health Organization (WHO).

This list covers mostly Indian, Pakistani and Iran’s cities. The top four cities belong to India. Air pollution damages lungs permanently. There are 1.3 million deaths occur annually due to toxic air only in India. This makes air pollution seconds biggest killer in India after heart disease.

Emission of toxic gasses has been reached the highest level in our atmosphere. These toxic gasses affected more than 00 million people, in the form of air pollution. It is estimated that there was 3.7 million premature deaths happened due to the air pollution only in 2012.

Chinese capital Beijing continuously made his name at the top, in the list of world’s most polluted cities. But now due to aggressive and consistent effort by Chinese government, they overcome air pollution up to great extent. Even now we did not find its name in the top 20 list. That is a great achievement. Other countries should follow Chinese government’s policies and methods to improve air quality.

Most polluted cities in the world

via: Weforum