Mumbai’s air quality plunges

Mumbai: Mumbai’s air quality is deteriorating, with the city air plunging to “moderate” level Thursday.

Since the beginning of November, Mumbai has been experiencing “good” air quality owing to back-to-back cyclones that brought rains in the city. Not only Mumbai, Navi Mumbai’s air, too, slipped to “poor” category Thursday.

According to weathermen, the city’s air quality is likely to see a further dip in the coming days once the mercury starts falling.

An Air Quality Index (AQI) — indicator of pollutants in the air — of 122 was recorded Thursday, which comes under the moderate category, according to the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR).

An AQI between 0 and 50 is considered “good”; between 51 and 100 is considered “moderate”; between 101 and 200 is considered “moderate”, and between 201 and 300 is considered “poor”. An official from the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said, “Given the onset of winter, the city’s air is likely to deteriorate as the temperature is going to decrease. The minimum temperature has already dipped slightly.”

An overall PM10 level of 132 — particulate matter of or less than 10mm in diameter, which mostly arises from dust pollution —  was recorded in Mumbai Thursday. Whereas, an overall PM2.5 level of 60 — fine particles with diameter less than 2.5mm, mostly arising from vehicular and industrial emissions — was recorded.

This is the first time in November that the city has recorded “moderate” air quality.

Among the nine stations monitored by SAFAR, none recorded good air Thursday.

BKC recorded the poorest air for the day at an AQI of 174 followed by Mazagaon (135), Andheri (134), Worli (124) and Chembur(124). Navi Mumbai, too, recorded poor air quality with an AQI of 283 as PM2.5 levels shot up drastically.