Hanoi suffocates and Vietnam's capital tops the list of most polluted cities. March 6, 2024

Hanoi topped air monitoring website IQAir's table of the world's most polluted cities on Tuesday (Nhac NGUYEN)

By AFP - Agence France Presse

Vietnam's capital, Hanoi, was blanketed by a thick haze of pollution on Tuesday, which obscured high-rise buildings and left the city's nearly nine million inhabitants breathing toxic air.

The city topped air monitoring website IQAir's table of the world's most polluted cities early on Tuesday afternoon.

Levels of PM2.5 pollutants - cancer-causing microparticles small enough to enter the bloodstream through the lungs - were classified as "very unhealthy" and reached more than 24 times the World Health Organization's annual guideline.

In recent years, Hanoi has often been listed among the world's most polluted cities, partly due to widespread construction and emissions from the large number of motorcycles and cars that pass through the capital every day.

Carbon emissions from coal-fired power stations in the north and agricultural burning exacerbate the problem.

"I've had to wear a mask whenever I've gone out in recent days because the air quality has been so bad," said office worker Nguyen Minh Huong.

"It's hard to breathe. I sneeze all the time, so I've had to limit my time outside," Huong told AFP.

Last month, dozens of flights were affected when high humidity caused a thick fog to envelop Hanoi, producing an increase in air pollution and causing visibility to plummet.

Meteorologists have issued regular warnings about the thick fog, especially in the mountainous areas of northeastern Vietnam.

The World Bank's latest report on air pollution states that 40% of people in Hanoi are exposed to concentrations almost five times higher than WHO guidelines.

The WHO states that several serious health conditions are linked to exposure to air pollution, including strokes, heart disease, and lung cancer.

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