Thai authorities have urged children and pregnant women to stay indoors and people to wear masks outdoors as toxic smog blankets vast areas of the country, prompting more than a million people to seek medical attention, authorities said.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha urged farmers to stop burning crop stubble and called for the eradication of vehicles that spew exhaust fumes.
Thailand’s Pollution Control Department issued a public health advisory on Friday asking citizens to “reduce their time spent outdoors and wear personal protective equipment if necessary.”
Vulnerable groups, including the elderly, children and pregnant women, were told to stay at home.
Since the beginning of the year, more than 1.3 million people in Thailand have been sickened by air pollution, a senior public health official said on Thursday, adding that more than 200,000 people were hospitalized this week alone.
“PM2.5 level has been above 51 micrograms per cubic meter of air for more than three consecutive days in 15 provinces, which has started to affect people’s health,” he told reporters at Bangkok Opart. Karnkawinpong, Thailand’s secretary of public health.
PM2.5 are hazardous airborne particles less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, which is about 30 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. They can cause serious health problems, including respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, and cancer.
“PM2.5 levels are higher this year compared to the last two years, partly because there was less travel due to the pandemic, resulting in less pollution,” Opart added.
Alliya Moun-Ob, an air pollution activist with Greenpeace Thailand, said the number of people getting sick due to air pollution is “terrifying and perhaps the worst we’ve seen so far.”
“We could see mountains in Chiang Mai, but we can’t see them anymore. In Bangkok, the tall buildings are lost in the smog,” he told RFA on Friday.
“It is the situation back to normal post-COVID. That is why it is particularly bad this year for Thailand. Also, there is less rain this year compared to the previous one.”
One of the worst in Southeast Asia.
Thailand ranks second in exposure to air pollution among Southeast Asian countries, according to the World Health Organization’s State of Global Air report.
Alliya said that Thailand “competes with Indonesia every year for the top spot in air pollution.”
Thailand’s air quality typically deteriorates during the dry season, between December and April, due to forest fires and farmers burning their fields to remove waste.
Thai government officials and environmentalists say open burning combined with vehicle exhaust and industrial emissions create the perfect conditions for toxic smog.
Somporn Chantara, director of Chiang Mai University’s Research Center for Environmental Sciences, said the “very poor air quality this year in the north is due to extensive burning in the region in agricultural areas and forests in Thailand and neighboring countries. ”
“This year’s air pollution season saw a record number of fires across the region,” he said, referring to Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.
On Thursday, Prayuth called on farmers to stop burning agricultural waste altogether after imposing a three-month burning ban last month.
“Please, I don’t want to use the laws. If it is used, all of you will break it. I don’t want anyone to get into trouble, but you have to think about the quality of life of others and their health as well,” he said.
In 2019, the Prayuth government declared tackling PM2.5 a national priority and issued a detailed five-year smog management master plan.
“I just looked at it today. Almost 20 of the more than 60 action plans have been implemented in four years,” Alliya said. “Nothing has been done to address industrial pollution, including from growing corn, which accounts for about a third of toxic air emissions in hotspot areas.”
Go back to wearing masks again
Thailand lifted the COVID-19 mask mandate in June, but many Thais have gone back to wearing masks due to air pollution.
“I started enjoying the fresh air without masks, but the last few weeks have been horrible with pollution,” Ploy Bunnag, a university student in Bangkok, told RFA on Friday.
“This week was one of the worst I can remember. I could even feel the toxic air in my throat.”
Chiang Mai, a popular tourist city in the north, was shrouded in unhealthy air on Friday afternoon, with its air quality ranked the second worst in the world, according to IQAir, a Swiss company that monitors air quality in 100 most important cities in the world in real time. -time.
The Beijing air was the worst. Yangon was third and Bangkok was fourth.
The situation report from Thailand’s Noise and Air Quality Management Office showed a reading of 246 AQI (Air Quality Index), a “very unhealthy” level, at a station in Chiang Mai at 2 p.m. Friday.
The central province of Sukhothai had the worst AQI reading in the country at 251, mainly due to agricultural burning, while most of Bangkok showed “unhealthy” levels above 101.
Assanee Buranupakorn, the mayor of Chiang Mai, said the haze problem negatively affects people’s health and significantly influences local tourism and economy.
“One strategy in Chiang Mai is to watch out for open burning, which has resulted in numerous hotspots this year,” Assanee told RFA.
He said they have also asked the owners of the city’s 17 high-rise buildings to help spray water from the roofs “to help trap smoke and dust and add moisture to the air.”
The World Health Organization has recommended that average annual PM2.5 readings not exceed 5 micrograms per cubic meter. IQ Air said Thailand’s reading was 20.2 micrograms per cubic meter in 2021.
According to the WHO State of Global Air report, air pollution was among the top 10 causes of death in Thailand in 2019, accounting for almost 8% of all deaths (more than 41,000 cases), and PM2.5 it was classified as the main risk of this type of deaths. deceased.
Kunnawut Boonreak in Chiang Mai contributed to this report.
Edited by Mike Firn.
Discover more from PressNewsAgency
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.