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On Tuesday morning residents of the world's most polluted city were faced with breathing extremely polluted air that registered in the "severe" level.

Record-Breaking Air Quality Readings

Multiple areas of Delhi registered an air quality index over 500, which translates to ten times the safe level set by the WHO.

In some locations, readings of dangerous airborne particles soared to of eighteen hundred, equating to fifteen to twenty times higher than acceptable levels.

Pyrotechnics Ban and Recent Developments

Since 2020, the government had enforced a total prohibition on the purchase and ignition of pyrotechnics during Diwali due to their substantial impact to the dangerous haze that blankets the city as winter approaches.

Yet earlier this year, the newly elected city administration appealed to the highest court to seek a relaxation of the restrictions.

The suggestion was allowing "eco-friendly fireworks" – historically doubted by environmentalists as being only about 30% lower impact – as a middle ground between "tradition and environment".

Court Ruling and Implementation

Despite concerns of environmental and health activists, judges complied with the request, specifying that environmentally conscious fireworks could be ignited during specific periods throughout the Diwali.

Throughout the festival evening, there was widespread flouting of the designated hours across the metropolis, with insufficient monitoring regarding whether the pyrotechnics being used were actually the more environmentally friendly version.

Numerous recording stations throughout Delhi showed pollution reaching highest levels around late evening to extremely hazardous measurements recorded during the festival in at least three years.

Regional Consequences

The proliferation of pyrotechnics during Diwali also initiated a blame game with adjacent Pakistan, with officials in Pakistan's Punjab province partially attributing declining air quality in the city of Lahore on pollutants traveling from across the border following the events.

Long-Standing Pollution Problem

The dangerously high levels of atmospheric toxins in the city have persisted as a major problem for over a decade and a half, with the situation showing no improvement.

Near Diwali, the amount of toxic particulate matter in the environment has been observed to spike to seventy percent above the peak levels ever measured in China's capital, which was formerly considered as the world's most polluted city.

Various Pollution Factors

This crisis in the city is attributed to a mix of various sources including heavy vehicle emissions, dust, development work, garbage fires and haze from farm burning in nearby areas of neighboring agricultural zones.

In these regions, rural residents routinely burn crop residue to expedite field preparation, generating toxic smog that remains stagnant over the metropolitan area as cooler air arrives.

Medical and Economic Toll

Public health and economic impact on the approximately 33 million residents residing in the metropolitan zone is substantial, according to multiple research.

These hazardous conditions leads to increased incidence of neurological, heart and circulatory and breathing conditions, and can result in malignancies.

Environmental contamination is calculated to be accounting for approximately 10k premature deaths each year in the capital.