Pakistan grapples with cross-border smog

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Pakistan is struggling to cope with smog in the vast eastern province of Punjab, where officials have pinned the blame for the latest wave of polluted air on the farmers across the border in India.

The province has been suffering from smog for the last 10 days, part of which has included road accidents, with reports of at least 15 deaths since Thursday. There has also been traffic disruption due to low visibility and health issues for people, Pakistani media reported.

Stubbles burnt by Indian farmers after their rice harvest prompted thick blanket of fog in the eastern part of the province, said Provincial Minister for Environmental Protection Zakia Shahnawaz during a press briefing in the provincial capital Lahore on Saturday.

Cross-border problem

"There are local contributions, but they are lesser than the situation in India where rampant crop stubble burning itself is a huge problem," Zakia said.

Reacting to the issue, Shujauddin Qureshi, a Karachi-based social worker, told CGTN Digital that the problem prevails in both countries.

“Even in Sindh also the farmers prefer to burn the husk and stems of the harvested rice crop,” he said, referring to the southern province.

“The same situation exists in upper Sindh districts of Ghotki and Sukkur. However, there are other reasons as well, like industrial emissions coming from chimneys. In our side of Punjab's chimneys also contribute,” he said.

Farmers in both Pakistan and India burn stubble to prepare for the next crop. /Reuters Photo‍

The Indian state of Punjab becomes a significant producer of air pollution for a few weeks in October and November, said NASA's Earth Observatory, referring to two growing seasons and two main crops in the state: Rice, planted in May and grown through September, and wheat, planted in November and grown through April.

Winds carried a stream of smoke – likely mixed with small particles of soil, dust, and partially burned plant material – toward New Delhi on November 2, said the observatory.

“The smoke from Punjab combined with urban pollution from vehicles, industry, and fireworks to push levels of particulate matter in the capital city to unusually high levels,” it added.

Many farmers burn rice residue after harvest in October and November to prepare the fields for the wheat crop.

Speaking of the practice of burning stubble, Afia Salam, a Karachi-based journalist who writes on the environment and climate change told CGTN Digital, “The plains of India and Pakistan have been experiencing it for many years in the form of fog at the onset of winter.”

“Smog is relatively recent... Lahore [first] experienced it last year in these very days... New Delhi is severely impacted that is why they had the ban on fireworks during Diwali there,” she added.

Disruptions and health hazards

Heavy smog blanketed the central and southern parts of Punjab from Thursday, decreasing visibility on the national highway and the motorway to near zero at various sections, Imran Shah, spokesperson for Motorway and National Highway Authority was quoted by Xinhua news agency as saying.

Flights at different airports in Pakistan's Punjab province were disrupted because of smog. /Reuters Photo

The Motorway and Highway Police have asked motorists to switch on fog lights and drive slowly. Citizens have also been advised to avoid unnecessary traveling.

The dense haze also disrupted flight operations at Lahore, Multan and Faisalabad airports with several flights being delayed and canceled.

Medical practitioners have reported health issues including breathing difficulties and throat and eye infections.

Nabbing the polluters

The provincial government has forbidden stubble burning across the province and violators are being arrested, Syed Mubashir Hussain, an official at the environment department told Xinhua.

Sixty-five people have been arrested and 175 pollution-causing units have been halted, he said, adding that brick kilns using low-quality fuel and operating without emission control devices have also been closed.

Seeking help of an all-weather friend

Daily newspaper Pakistan Today noted that no official at the Saturday’s briefing, which Environment Protection Department and Meteorological department officials attended, could explain the actual statistics of air pollutants present in the atmosphere, hinting at the apparent lack of resources to measure and improve air quality.

It was perhaps the reason an environmental sustainability and climate expert Kulsum Ahmed suggested Pakistan should seek China’s help on air quality.

“China is a great example of a country acting in a focused way to reduce air pollution, prompted by economic and health concerns,” she wrote in an opinion piece appeared in Pakistan's English-language daily DAWN earlier this week.

A man wearing a mask walks past the skyline of Singapore's business district, which was blanketed in haze because of blazes on Indonesia's Sumatra island in 2013. /Reuters Photo

“Can’t we also ask China for help on air quality, under the CPEC umbrella, so we can learn from them and avoid the problems that they face today?” she asked.

“We might even be able to partner with Chinese industries to produce the pollution-control technologies we need to help control our own air quality.”

Cross-border smog became an issue between three ASEAN member states back in June 2013 when the slash and burn method of land clearance for cultivation caused blazes on Indonesia's Sumatra island, leaving neighboring Singapore and Malaysia choking in their worst haze for more than a decade.

(Cover Photo: NASA's Earth Observatory)