Courtesy The Guardian
Karachi has been named among the most polluted cities in the world, according to this month’s data graphic by Pete Guest as well as World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines.
Four Indian cities namely New Delhi, Patna, Gwalior and Raipur were also included in the list.
This month’s data set graphic by Guest looks at the deaths attributable to air pollution as well as WHO guidelines. According to the data, a total of 3.7 million deaths are attributable to air pollution.
Other cities such as Beijing and Paris were also included in the list, but their concentration of particulate matter was a lot less, as compared to cities of the two neighbouring countries – Pakistan and India.
In July 2015, three Pakistani cities were listed among 20 most polluted cities in the world, according to the World Economic Forum. Of the Pakistani cities, Karachi, Peshawar and Rawalpindi were among the 20 most polluted cities in the world, as per the most recent statistics from WHO compiled from more than 1,600 cities for the years 2008 to 2013.
Karachi ranked number five just ahead of Peshawar and Rawalpindi which stand at six and seven in the list of 20 most polluted cities.
Separately, last week researchers revealed that air pollution kills more than 5.5 million people around the world each year, with over half of those deaths occurring in fast-growing China and India.
The number of premature deaths will continue to climb in the years ahead unless more aggressive measures against pollution are adopted, scientists warned the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in the US capital.
“Air pollution is the fourth highest risk factor for death globally and by far the leading environmental risk factor for disease,” said Michael Brauer, a professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Population and Public Health in Vancouver, Canada.
