Take guard if you plan a night out in Kolkata – Times of India

KOLKATA: It will be a bit hazardous to go for a night-out on Christmas Eve with the city’s air turning the foul at night. Thermal inversion is refusing to allow dispersal of pollutants and thousands of goods vehicles are leaving a trail of noxious fumes. The tiny particles of pollutants can travel to your blood vessels and lungs to affect your health adversely.
The city’s ambient air has remained poor (AQI: 201-300) and at night, it is moving closer to very poor (AQI: 301-400) across the continuous ambient air quality monitoring stations. Worse, with the progress of the night, the air quality declines further.

Since, thousands of people congregate at Park Street and other party zones in the city on the Christmas Eve, on December 25 and 31, people are likely to be affected adversely. Moreover, the cases of influenza are rising. It is very difficult to distinguish between Covid and non-Covid patients. Large gatherings should strictly be avoided, said pulmonologist Arup Halder.
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“Unlike 2020, the number of patients with breathing distress is sharply rising in our clinics and hospitals, which are indicative of the declining AQI. Since the city’s AQI is driven by PM2.5, the fear is more.
The problem is thermal inversion, which is slowly setting in. It lowers the vertical wind movement because of lower radiative temperature at the ground level. If the wind speed goes down below 2m/second, the dispersal of pollutants from the lower strata of the atmosphere becomes insignificantly small. As pollutants pile up in the breathable height, people face serious health impacts, said a WBPCB scientist.
Mercury may rise by a notch: Met
The minimum temperature dropped to 13.1°C in Kolkata and could spiral up to 14°C as the northwesterly winds slow down. A western disturbance could pull the mercury up further to around 15°C by Christmas, said the Met office.