In recent days, Hanoi has been continuously immersed in a thick layer of gray fog - not winter fog, but PM2.5 fine dust accumulated in the counter-term, windless weather conditions. For an urban area of more than 8 million people, this is not only a weather inconvenience, but a serious warning about environmental security.
According to the national monitoring system, the North is entering an unfavorable weather period, making it difficult for pollutants to diffuse. However, the weather only revealed a long-standing problem: huge emissions from industry, transportation, construction and spontaneous garbage burning. When environmental infrastructure cannot keep up with the speed of urbanization, pollution can easily become a "chronic disease" of Hanoi.
What is more worrying is the health impact. PM2.5 can go deep into the lungs and blood, increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, and stroke. Children and the elderly are at the highest risk. With AQI above 150, healthy people can also experience respiratory irritation; outdoor activities become a risk. This forces Hanoi to consider air pollution as an urgent challenge to social security and public health, similar to a type of "silent disease".
In this situation, recently, the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment has requested a series of urgent measures: Factories must ensure the emission treatment system operates to the maximum, even reducing capacity during bad air quality days; construction works must be covered, sprayed with dusty water; vehicles carrying uncovered materials, vehicles emitting black smoke will be inspected and fined; students are advised to limit outdoor activities when AQI increases. These are necessary moves to reduce emissions in the short term.
However, the blockage is not enough to help Hanoi escape the vicious cycle of pollution every winter. A more long-term and drastic strategy is a mandatory requirement. First of all, the city needs to strictly control industrial waste sources using automatic and transparent measurement data. The transportation system must be "greened": Control the emissions of old vehicles, eliminate vehicles that are over the age limit, strongly develop public transport and clean vehicles. Construction works must be subject to heavy sanctions if they cause dust; spontaneous garbage burning in suburban areas needs to be thoroughly handled.
Air quality is a measure of the quality of life. When it is really difficult to breathe, people will see the meaning and necessity of applying policies such as relocating industrial facilities out of the inner city, limiting private vehicles, limiting fossil fuel vehicles and standardizing the environment for large construction projects.
