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Pakistan's Punjab establishes 'smog war room' to fight dangerous air, shuts schools

Pakistan's province of Punjab set up a smog war space to take on extreme contamination, authorities stated, as bad air quality turned its capital of Lahore into the world's most polluted city and required the closure of some educational institutions.

Live rankings by Swiss group IQAir offered Lahore a pollution index score of 1165, followed by the Indian capital of New Delhi, with 299.

The war room committee will examine weather and air quality projections ... daily and monitor the performance and actions of field officers, said Sajid Bashir, a spokesperson for the province's environment department.

Officials informed Reuters it brings together personnel from eight departments, with a single person charged with overseeing jobs from controlling burning of farm waste to handling traffic.

Two times day-to-day sessions will evaluate information and forecasts to brief stakeholders on efforts to eliminate pollution, and issue daily advisories, they included.

Authorities in Punjab ordered universities in several locations to close till Nov. 17 and shift to online mentor instead to secure kids and suppress pollution. Earlier only primary schools in Lahore had actually been shut for a week.

But Wednesday's index score for Lahore fell short of last week's unprecedented reading of 1900 in some areas, an excess of more than 120 times over advised levels, triggering bans on some building activity and orders to work from home.

At the time, Punjab's senior minister, Marriyum Aurangzeb, blamed the harmful air on pollution wandering throughout the border with India just 25 km (16 miles) away. Northern areas of the neighbouring country are also fighting extreme contamination.

The Punjab federal government would ask Pakistan's foreign office to take up the matter with India's foreign ministry, she told the Indian Express newspaper in an interview published on Wednesday.

South Asia is shrouded in intense pollution every winter season as cold air traps emissions, dust, and smoke from farm fires, while contamination might cut more than five years from people's life expectancy in the region, a research study discovered in 2015.

On Tuesday the environment minister of New Delhi, rated the world's most contaminated capital for four successive years by IQAir, stated officials were looking to synthetic rain to fight the issue this year.

(source: Reuters)