Still air and a temperature inversion keep Lahore under hazardous haze; Punjab says smog is lower than two years ago, but residents are queuing at hospitals and the worst weeks are still ahead.
LAHORE: Lahore’s air quality index reached 362 on Wednesday morning and topped 700 in Allama Iqbal Town, as still, damp autumn air sealed the city under a lid of smog and the provincial government sent out water trucks and mist guns to wash its roads.
Allama Iqbal Town recorded 722, Barki Road 455, Model Town 362, DHA Phase V 282 and Bedian Road 264, according to readings. Any reading above 300 is classed as hazardous, and the most polluted pockets of the city were more than double that threshold.
The readings are the latest in a run that began at the start of the month. On Tuesday, IQAir put Lahore at 447 early in the morning, and private monitors recorded 902 in Iqbal Town and 698 in Paragon City, reports said. The Punjab government’s own dashboard showed the city at 433 on Tuesday and 378 at 5am on Wednesday.
The figures vary because different networks use different stations and averaging periods. The provincial dashboard, which normally lists 36 cities, showed only 31 on Wednesday morning and carried a notice about station connectivity problems, according to Pakistan Era, leaving gaps in the official picture on one of the worst days of the season.
Iqbal Town has been the city’s recurring hotspot. It hit 342 two weeks ago when Lahore first topped global rankings this season.
The immediate cause is the weather. Abdullah Nayyar Sheikh, director general of Punjab’s Environment Protection Department, told Reuters that falling temperatures since early November had created a temperature inversion, in which a layer of warmer air sits above colder air at ground level and traps smoke and dust, and that wind speeds had been “extremely low” for days.
At 5am on Wednesday, Lahore’s wind speed was 0.3 metres per second, close to dead calm, with humidity at 86pc and a temperature of 20C. Thick haze hid landmarks including the Badshahi Mosque and Minar-e-Pakistan.
Relief is not in the forecast. The National Disaster Management Authority’s seasonal outlook expects smog risk to rise from mid-November into December, when nights grow colder and inversions stronger. A westerly system brought rain to the north late last month and briefly eased Lahore’s smog, but no comparable system was forecast for the plains this week, and the province has not announced any artificial rain, an option air quality experts say it has missed.
Hospitals are seeing long queues of patients with flu-like symptoms and eye infections, reports said, and the health department advised asthma patients and pregnant women to stay indoors where possible and wear masks.
“People are falling ill, suffering from throat problems and breathing difficulties,” resident Mohammad Ali told Reuters on Tuesday, urging the government to take the problem more seriously.
The province’s most visible response this week was Chamkta Lahore (Shining Lahore), a cleanliness and dust-suppression campaign launched by Local Government Minister Zeeshan Rafique at Liberty Chowk on Tuesday. It deploys 16 road-washing machines, 46 rickshaw-mounted footpath washers and 10 rickshaw-mounted mist guns across 100 major roads and markets, with a target of washing 100km of road a day, reports said.
Rafique said smog in November was noticeably lower than two years ago, crediting measures introduced since then. He has a point on the extremes: in November 2024, readings at some Lahore monitors exceeded 1,000 and the government shut schools and ordered lockdowns in several cities. But this week’s levels remain several times the hazardous threshold.
Washing roads tackles dust, one source among many. The EPD lists transport emissions, industry, brick kilns, crop burning, construction dust and waste burning as the main contributors, and the finest particles, which do the most damage to lungs, come largely from combustion. The province has been fining and sealing polluters, with police arresting violators and the EPD sealing industrial units, while the chief minister has said shutting factories is not the answer.
As of Wednesday morning, no smog-related closure of schools or offices had been ordered. Such a step requires an EPD order and a School Education Department notification. Schools were told last month to halt outdoor activities when readings are high.
Lahore was not alone. Nankana Sahib hit the dashboard’s 500 ceiling on Wednesday morning, with Kot Addu, Vehari, Kasur and Rajanpur all above 400. Bahawalnagar was reported at 606. Sheikh said similar conditions were being seen across the border in India, where the same weather and crop-burning season affect Indian Punjab and Delhi.
Doctors and the EPD advise children, older people and anyone with asthma or heart disease to stay indoors; others should limit time outside and avoid exercising outdoors. Anyone going out should wear a well-fitted N95 or KN95 mask, and windows should be kept shut overnight and in the early morning, when pollution peaks. Smoke sources can be reported through the Green Punjab app or the EPD helpline, 1373.
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