One fringe benefit of the lockdown to slow the spread of Covid-19 is the visible reduction in pollution. The latest example of it has come from Uttar Pradesh, where people took photos of what they said was the Himalayan mountain range.
Just earlier this month, the Dhauladhar range in the Himachal was visible from Punjab’s Jalandhar.
Photos of the rare occurrence in Saharanpur went viral after Indian Forest Service officer Ramesh Pandey shared a few on Twitter.
“Lockdown and intermittent rains have significantly improved the AQI. These pictures were taken by Dushyant, an Income Tax inspector, from his house at Vasant Vihar colony on Monday evening,” he wrote.
Snow capped peaks of Himalaya are now visible from Saharnpur !
Lockdown and intermittent rains have significantly improved the AQI. These pictures were taken by Dushyant, an Income Tax inspector, from his house at Vasant Vihar colony on Monday evening. #lockdowneffect #nature pic.twitter.com/1vFfJqr05J— Ramesh Pandey IFS (@rameshpandeyifs) April 29, 2020
He later added that the range was around 200 km away in Uttarakhand and that the photos were received by Sanjay Kumar, the Commissioner of Saharanpur.
Another Indian Forest Service officer Parveen Kaswan also shared a photo of the spectacular view of mountain range at dusk.
When you can see snow peaks from Saharanpur. They say it is rare to see these peaks which are 150-200 km far. I hope now people will appreciate what they were missing earlier. PC Ashutosh Mishra. pic.twitter.com/1jeGlK7LZx
— Parveen Kaswan, IFS (@ParveenKaswan) April 29, 2020
Others also shared what they claimed were photos taken by the locals of the city in Uttar Pradesh.
A view of Saharanpur..
Mother Nature is healing itself.
Positive impact of #Lockdown..Pollution free enviroment.
(#Saharanpur #Uttarakhand #India #IncredibleIndia )
Link-https://t.co/oaxGGJQp86 pic.twitter.com/CKU5vamfkQ— Dr. Shuchita Vatsal (@SJVatsal) April 29, 2020
Another one sir from Saharanpur pic.twitter.com/QwQGPvtVwO
— sagar sharma (@ptsagarsharma) April 29, 2020
People on social media were excited to see the photos, and claimed that ‘nature was healing’.
So mesmerizing. Indeed this Lockdown has bring out the best we had forgotten about 😇😇
— Prerna Apoorv (@ApoorvPrerna) April 30, 2020
Nature is healing
— Wasim Shaikh (@WasimSh73787067) April 29, 2020
♥️ this is natural healing which will help in a long run… while Ozone hole also healed this week completely due to decrease in polar vorticity…This lockdown proved to be game changer.
— Suhail Bashir (@SuhailBashirP) April 29, 2020
That’s unbelievable and amazing. In normal days even mussoorie range is not visible from Saharanpur
— Abhishek (@bhardwaajabhi) April 29, 2020
This gives us better idea now of how our ancestors were able to keep sanity & focus on their lives with little resources. They were not blinded by the pollution of modern materialism, they had clear vision to the end purpose of life – sanyas/self realisation. Thank U for sharing.
— Hridesh Agarwal – Stay Indoors (@agarwal_hridesh) April 29, 2020
Now Desperately waiting to see glimpses of Great Himalayas from each and everypart of Northern India 🇮🇳
— प्रSHANT (@prish123lko) April 29, 2020
So people in Northern states like Punjab, UP are getting free sight seeing opportunitities right from their home!😊
— Vardhan (@vardhan_mhv) April 29, 2020
Unbelievable. I have been to this place several times. Never thought these peaks could be visible from this place.
— Anil_kopparapu (@kopparapu_anil) April 29, 2020
May be these peaks become visible from Delhi too ….if lockdown gets extended till May end. Is it ?
😃😃😄😄— Dilip (@surewrap) April 29, 2020
Save it to your memories because once #lockdown will get over and ‘Development’ by humans will start its going to vanish.
— Panchanan Mishra (@panchananmishra) April 29, 2020
This is looking beautiful
— ⓅⓇⒾⓎⒶⓁ (@priyalpoddar) April 29, 2020
we are fortunate enough what we are seeing “the true beauty of Mother 🌍” before it was like once upon a time .. clicked beautifully ..
— Rima Rai (@rrai792) April 29, 2020