I’ve been just exhausted for the last few weeks. Not sick, just tired. I wake up tired and by the end of the day I’m totally zapped. All of us have been. I’ve been blaming the poor air quality and it seems that I’m right. I make jokes about opening up an oxygen bar downtown but it might not be a bad idea…
Cairo tries to escape life under a black cloud
(read the rest of the story here)
Ranked one of the most polluted cities in the world, Cairo is once again under the shadow of a highly toxic black cloud which mysteriously settles above the huge city every autumn.
Exhaust fumes belched by millions of cars mixed with the hypertoxic emissions of the annual burning of rice stubble in rural areas of the Nile Delta are a prime cause, along with the city’s ever-expanding population.
“We have here 540 micrograms per cubic metre of PM10 (polluting particles), which is three times higher than the official limit, and 10 times the limit of the World Health Organisation,” meteorologist Magdi Abdel Wahab told AFP.
The thick “lead blanket” settles every year over this Nile city, triggering serious health concerns for its 16 million residents.
Emissions of nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide gases, mainly from the city’s traffic, are mixed with the PM10 particles to create a potentially lethal cocktail, experts say.
The WHO has recommended lowering levels of the particles, which can cause a range of problems from bronchitis to foetal deformities, to 20 micrograms per cubic metre per year.
“Visits to my clinic have increased in recent weeks by 50 percent, and that is due to the pollution,” pneumologist Assem al-Issawy told AFP.
The black cloud started appearing in Cairo skies in 1999 to the dismay of the city’s residents who already struggle to deal with surging pollution on a par with Beijing and Mexico City.
Since then, it returns faithfully every September and lasts until early winter, intensifying air pollution which kills up to 5,000 people every year, according to medical sources.
The authorities lay much of the blame with farmers in the Nile Delta who traditionally burn rice stubble to enrich the land for the next harvest.
On top of factory and traffic pollution, the burden is too much for Cairo’s environment.
MOST DANGEROUSLY POLLUTED CITIES
PARTICULATE MATTER AIR POLUTION 2004
(Micrograms per cubic meter)
Source: The World Bank
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ParticulateRANK CITY COUNTRY Matter---- --------- ------------- -----------1 Cairo Egypt 1692 Delhi India 1503 Kolkata India 1284 Tianjin China 1255 Chongqing China 1237 Kampur India 1098 Lucknow India 1099 Jakarta Indonesia 10410 Shenyang China 101
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