Before and After: When Smog Stole the Yamuna

Who stole the Yamuna? The smog did.

Where did the Yamuna go?

(Photo: Sameeksha Khare/The Quint)

One is an image that was clicked in October this year. A beautiful day when the sun blazed over the Yamuna river, making the water glisten and the greenery stand out. The other image was taken a few weeks later, on 8 November, when smog engulfed the entire National Capital Region to a point that there is no longer any way to measure air quality.

(Top: Image taken on 8 November 2017; Bottom: Image taken in October 2017. The Yamuna flows somewhere behind the muddy haze.) 

As Delhiites choke, cough and tear up, the smog has intensified its stranglehold, with some parts of the city reporting PM 2.5 levels of 1,500. Most Air Quality Index monitors can read pollution levels only till 999. That could perhaps be because when they were designed, no one imagined pollution to cross that level.

The Indian Medical Association has called for the situation to be labelled a health emergency. Delhi government has called for primary schools to be shut and construction activity to be stopped.

Here’s another before and after photo of the Indian capital region in the smog. And before you ask, no, it’s not a scene from Apocalypse Now.

The smog as seen from my window. Could all those cars have contributed to the living hell we are in now?

Follow The Quint for live updates as Delhi-NCR battles the severe smog.

(Breathe In, Breathe Out: Are you finding it tough to breathe polluted air? Join hands with FIT to find #PollutionKaSolution. Send in your suggestions to [e-mail] or WhatsApp @ [phone])