This morning, many people on the streets felt uncomfortable when the air pollution in many places reached dangerous levels. The Air Visual air quality index application at 8:30 a.m. ranked Hanoi as the third most polluted in the world with an AQI of 257, after Delhi (India) and Baghdad (Iraq).
Many monitoring points show that the AQI index is at a dangerous level such as Dong Truc (Thach That) AQI threshold 392 - dangerous brown threshold; To Ngoc Van measuring point (Tay Ho) has AQI threshold 338; Quang Khanh (Tay Ho) has AQI threshold 326; Ho Tay (Tay Ho) has AQI threshold 312.
Many other locations show that the AQI index is at the purple threshold - very harmful to health such as Le Duan Street with AQI 220, University of Technology Giai Phong Street (Hai Ba Trung) with AQI 275, Lo Duc Street AQI 262, Vinhome riverside AQI 264, Ciputra (Tay Ho) AQI 280...
The Pam Air application also pointed out many brown-threshold pollution spots such as Dong Anh with AQI 304, Doi Can (Ba Dinh) with AQI 308.
Hanoi is one of the two largest cities in Vietnam. With rapid urbanization, economic development and population growth, air pollution is becoming one of the priority issues to be solved. Hanoi currently has about 1.1 million cars; 6.9 million motorbikes, 10 industrial parks; 70 industrial clusters; 1,370 craft villages in operation. These are activities that need attention and control in environmental management in general and air quality management in Hanoi in particular.
According to the National Environmental Status Report 2016-2020, the average annual PM2.5 dust concentration in Hanoi during the period 2018-2020 exceeded the national technical regulation QCVN 05:2013/BTNMT (25 μg/m3) by nearly 2 times. The average annual PM10 dust concentration exceeded the QCVN limit by 1.3 to 1.6 times. The number of days in 2019 with the air quality index (VN_AQI) at poor and bad levels (average of stations) accounted for 30.5% of the total number of monitoring days in the year, some days the air quality declined to very bad levels (VN_AQI above 200).
General assessment of Hanoi air quality and trends shows that daily and yearly average PM10 and PM2.5 dust exceeds QCVN 05:2013/BTNMT; many times higher than WHO recommendations.
The AQI is an air quality index that ranges from 0-500, with higher numbers indicating higher levels of pollution and health impacts. Readings above 300 are considered unhealthy, while 0-50 indicate good air quality.
