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(Bloomberg) — Air pollution-related deaths in India are higher even in cities previously thought to have relatively clean air, according to a study published in The Lancet Planetary Health journal, underscoring that the problem extends beyond megacities like Delhi.
Thursday’s report sheds new light on the widespread nature of the air-quality crisis in the country. It found that a significant portion of the 33,000 annual deaths attributed to air pollution in the 10 cities were recorded in coastal centres such as Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai, where air quality is considered moderate.
“The significant impacts that we are seeing even below Indian air quality limits are worrying. This suggests that perhaps we have set our standards much higher than we should,” said Bhargav Krishna, fellow at the Sustainable Futures Collaborative and lead author of the study.
The researchers looked at 3.6 million deaths that occurred between 2008 and 2019 in the sample areas, and overlapped them with a detailed map of the distribution of PM 2.5, a compound of cancer-causing pollutants that is so small it can enter the bloodstream.
They found that exposure to high levels of particulate matter for as little as 48 hours can lead to a poorer life expectancy at the collective level, with 7.2% of all deaths caused by PM2.5 concentrations above the World Health Organization’s standard of 15 micrograms per cubic meter.
The study found that even in the Himalayan city of Shimla, which had the cleanest air among the cities studied, 3.7% of deaths were pollution-related.
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