According to Lao Dong, by noon of the same day, everywhere in Ho Chi Minh City was still covered by a thick layer of fog. High-rise buildings such as Landmark 81, Bitexco... were obscured and blurred.
This phenomenon is even more evident in areas along the Saigon River, causing limited visibility.
"The phenomenon of fog appears more and more at the end of the year, it is almost impossible to see tall buildings at a distance of 50-100m. People who are sensitive to the weather like me feel quite uncomfortable" - Mr. Hoang Bach (living in Binh Thanh district) shared.
On the air monitoring application Air Visual (belonging to IQAir, which owns a huge amount of aggregated data on air quality and is headquartered in Switzerland), at 11:30 a.m., many areas in Ho Chi Minh City had unhealthy air quality measurement points reaching the threshold of 171.
Current PM2.5 concentrations are 16.8 times higher than the WHO annual guideline value for PM2.5.
Mr. Le Dinh Quyet - Head of Forecasting Department, Southern Hydrometeorological Station - said that the cause of fog in the last days of the year in Ho Chi Minh City is due to high humidity creating a layer of fog near the ground.
On New Year's Day in Ho Chi Minh City and neighboring provinces and cities, the clouds will change to mostly cloudy, with light fog in the early morning and less cloudy and sunny during the day.