Smog-filled Indian cities, including the capital, 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
Heavy air pollution is pictured around Rashtrapati Bhavan and government buildings in New Delhi.
Image: Sajjad Hussain / AFP©
More than seven percent of all deaths in 10 of India's biggest cities are linked to air pollution, a large study said Thursday, leading researchers to call for action to save tens of thousands of lives a year.
Smog-filled Indian cities including the capital 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 percent of the recorded deaths in those cities during that period, according to the study in The Lancet Planetary Health journal.