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In India, Air So Dirty Your Head Hurts

By KAI SCHULTZ, HARI KUMAR and JEFFREY GETTLEMAN NOV. 8, 2017

NEW DELHI — A toxic cloud has descended on India’s capital, delaying flights and
trains, causing coughs, headaches and even highway pileups, and prompting Indian
officials on Wednesday to take the unprecedented step of closing 4,000 schools for
nearly a week.

Delhi has notoriously noxious air but even by the standards of this city, this
week’s pollution has been alarming, reaching levels nearly 30 times what the World
Health Organization considers safe. On Tuesday, the government decided to close
primary schools and on Wednesday the closings were extended to all public and
most private schools.

For those of us living here, the air pollution saps our strength. Many people feel
nauseated all day, like from a never-ending case of car sickness. The air tastes smoky
and irritates the throat, and in some neighborhoods, it smells like paint.

Even if you have air filters in your house, as some of us do, a faint lingering
chemical smell always seems to find its way in, through air-conditioner vents, open
windows and cracks in the doors.

Manish Sisodia, the deputy chief minister of Delhi State, said he was driving to a
meeting Wednesday morning when he passed a school bus and saw two children
throwing up out of the window. “That was shocking for me,” he said. “I immediately
told my officers to pass the order to close all the schools.”
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In some parts of the city, the levels of PM 2.5 — insidiously small particles that can
settle deep in the lungs — had climbed to more than 700 micrograms per cubic
meter, which is considered hazardous to breathe, according to data provided by the
Delhi Pollution Control Committee. Scientists estimate these particles have killed
millions.

Sadly accustomed to toxic air, many of Delhi’s people are donning masks of one
sort or another. It’s not unusual to see a man whizzing by on a motorcycle with a T-
shirt wrapped over most of his face. On Wednesday, we saw one young woman
standing on a sidewalk clutching a clump of her long dark hair over her mouth to act
as a veil.

Hanging low and thick, the smog looks like a blend of white smoke and fog. It is
a combination of vehicle emissions, industrial pollution and smoke from crop
burning in nearby farming areas. The colder weather at this time of year packs the
pollution together, making it even worse.

The smog is so heavy that drivers often can’t see cars slowing down in front of
them, causing serious accidents and several highway pileups.

The problem seems to be spinning further out of control as India’s government

struggles to get in front of it. The decentralized governance system here complicates
things because the rural areas burning the crops fall under different jurisdictions
than the urban areas suffering the smog.

In a statement released on Wednesday, Mr. Sisodia said the air pollution had
“engulfed the city.” Pollution levels will be reassessed over the weekend, he said, and
a decision made about whether schools should remain closed for longer.

For now, more than four million children are getting a long holiday.

It is widely believed they will be safer staying at home than going to and from
school on polluted streets, though most homes in Delhi do not have a single air filter.

Officials said this was the first time so many schools would be closed for this
many days. Air pollution levels this year are on par with ones recorded in the city last
 November, when the Indian government closed 1,800 primary schools for three
days.

Last year, visibility conditions from the fog dropped to a 17-year low at Indira
Gandhi International Airport. Newspaper stories from then read almost identical to
those today, down to stories about car pileups on the highway.

On Wednesday evening, Delhi officials decided to halt some construction

projects — to reduce airborne dust — and ban some classes of heavy trucks from
entering the city.

Delhi’s chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, has called Delhi “a gas chamber.”

Follow Hari Kumar @HariNYT, Kai Schultz @Kai_Schultz and Jeffrey Gettleman
@gettleman on Twitter.

A version of this article appears in print on November 9, 2017, on Page A5 of the New York edition with
the headline: India Closes 4,000 Schools Over Dirty Air.

© 2018 The New York Times Company