It’s how Department of Environment’s Clean Air and Sustainable Environment (CASE) project Director SM Manzurul Hannan Khan describes the winter in Bangladesh’s capital city, Dhaka.
Not only in Dhaka, the level of harmful particles in the air increases in adjacent Gazipur and Narayanganj, and Chittagong, Barisal, Khulna and Rajshahi, making the air ‘extremely unhealthy’ on most days in the winter.
Khan says air quality is worst in winter while the cities experience ‘comparatively better’ air during the rainy season.
The CASE project calculated the amount of particulate matters in the air at 11 places in Bangladesh.
The experts call air quality of an area ‘good’ when it earns less than 50 points in the Air Quality Index (AQI), a relative measure of the amount of air pollution.
The standard varies by country.
In Bangladesh the AQI is based on five criteria pollutants - Particulate Matter (PM10 and PM2.5), NO2, CO, SO2 and Ozone (O3).
The other levels in AQI are Moderate (51-100), Caution (101-150), Unhealthy (151-200), Very Unhealthy (201-300), and Extremely Unhealthy (301-500).
The levels did not change on the following day, and not even by the end of the winter on Jan 18.
The levels had been ‘good’ in all the cities onJuly 26 during the rainy season last year.
Khan said there was no alternative to raising awareness against dark smoke emitted from vehicles and air pollution through construction.
Besides, spraying water on the streets will also help, she said.
Dhaka South City Corporation official Abdullah Harun said water is being sprayed at some VIP points.
Dhaka North official Tareque Bin Yusuf said they were yet to take any such step.
“The Department of Environment or other related authorities have not conveyed us anything,” he said.