Canpur Residents Choking On World's Worst Air Pollution; Lung Cancer Spiking Among Non-Smokers
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The city of three million people has been smarting since a World Health Organization (WHO) report last month put it at the head of 14 Indian cities in the world's top 15 with the dirtiest air. The pain has building up for much longer, but as the world marks Environment Day, the fallout has reached crisis point for many in Kanpur.
Sunil Dahiya, senior campaigner with Greenpeace India, said "the models available to us make it certain that hundreds of thousands of people are dying in India each year because of air pollution". A senior doctor at the Murari Lal Chest Hospital, Anand Kumar, said the number of patients has jumped from about 40,000 in 2015 to 64,000 last year.
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In one overcrowded ward, 74-year-old Ram Lakhan, who spends long periods in hospital barely able to breathe, blamed his suffering on cars. "Where are the trees now? We only have vehicles, pollution and traffic jams. "With all the greenery gone, we are only breathing what is available -- pollution," he said.
"I've never had it this bad before. I only used to feel breathlessness and discomfort in bad winters, when there was smog. But it has been hard even in summers for the last two or three years," he added.
In the crippling traffic, it took an hour to drive the seven kilometres (four miles) from the hospital to the Uttar Pradesh state pollution control office where chief officer Kuldeep Misra also took aim at the 1.15 million vehicles on city roads. "This is an industrial city but vehicles here pollute more than industry," he said.
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https://www.afp.com/en/news/205/bad-air-day-indian-city-chokes-worlds-worst-pollution-doc-15l4cb1
