Air Pollution: Dhaka achieves 5th place among most polluted cities around world

With an Air Quality Index (AQI) of 165 at 8:40 am on Sunday, Dhaka was fifth on the list of cities with the poorest air quality in the entire world.

According to the AQI, the air in Dhaka was deemed "unhealthy."

Air quality is deemed "unhealthy for sensitive groups" when the AQI value for particle pollution is between 101 and 150, "unhealthy" when it is between 150 and 200, "very unhealthy" when it is between 201 and 300, and "hazardous" when it is at or above 301, posing serious health risks to locals.

The top three cities on the list were Lahore (Pakistan), Delhi (India), and Mumbai (India), with AQI scores of 261, 227, and 169, respectively.

People can learn how clean or dirty the air in a particular city is, as well as any potential health threat, using the AQI, an indicator for reporting daily air quality.

Five pollutants determine the AQI in Bangladesh: particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5), NO2, CO, SO2, and ozone.

Air pollution has always been a problem in Dhaka. Winter is often when the air quality deteriorates, and monsoon season is when it gets better.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), air pollution causes the deaths of an estimated seven million people annually, because it increases mortality from conditions like heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and acute respiratory infections.