Air pollution killed more than 33,000 Indians a year from 2008 to 2019: Lancet study
- The country’s capital New Delhi was the worst offender, with 12,000 annual deaths linked to air pollution
Smog-filled Indian cities including the capital New Delhi suffer from some of the world’s worst air pollution, choking the lungs of residents and posing a rising threat to health still being revealed by researchers.
For the new study, an Indian-led team looked at the levels of cancer-causing microparticles known as PM2.5 pollutants in the cities of Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, Shimla and Varanasi.
From 2008 to 2019, more than 33,000 deaths a year could be attributed to PM2.5 exposure above the World Health Organization’s recommendation of 15 micrograms per cubic metre, the study said.
That represents 7.2 per cent of the recorded deaths in those cities during that period, according to the study in The Lancet Planetary Health journal.
India’s capital New Delhi was the worst offender, with 12,000 annual deaths linked to air pollution – or 11.5 per cent of the total.