Air Pollution Shuts Schools in Tehran, Other Cities

Date: 15 December 2019 - 21:50

News ID: ۷۳۹۲۷

TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- Air pollution forced schools to close on Sunday and Monday in parts of Iran including Tehran, as the capital lay under a thick cloud of smog considered hazardous to health.
The pollution level in the capital was "unhealthy for sensitive groups” and officials warned the young, elderly and people with respiratory illnesses to stay indoors, with sporting activities suspended.
The decision to shut schools in the capital was announced by deputy governor Muhammad Taqizadeh, after a meeting of an emergency committee on air pollution.
"All of (Tehran) province’s schools except for Firuzkuh and Damavand counties are closed for Sunday and Monday,” he said, quoted by state news agency IRNA.
Schools in the capital will close on Monday, the third day of the Iranian working week, he added later in a state TV interview.
An "odd-even” traffic scheme based on vehicles’ registration numbers was imposed to restrict traffic in the capital, IRNA reported. Trucks were banned outright in Tehran province.
Taqizadeh added that all activities at Tehran province’s numerous sand quarries would also be halted.
Schools were also closed in the northern province of Alborz and parts of East Azarbaijan and Bushehr provinces and in the central cities of Qom and Arak.
A grey cloud hung over Tehran on Sunday, obstructing the view of the mountains overlooking the city to the north.
Average airborne concentration of the finest and most hazardous particles (PM2.5) was at 145 micrograms per cubic meter for the 24 hours until Sunday noon, according to government website air.tehran.ir.
That is close to six times the World Health Organization’s

recommended maximum of 25 micrograms per m3.
Tehran citizens blame the authorities for rampant construction and lack of public transport diversification, leading to continuous pollution in the capital.
One citizen was quoted as saying that the solution was the "electrification of public transport” such as buses and taxis and expanding Tehran’s usually crammed metro.
For the Tehrani Reza, the main suspect is the municipality because of "the construction permits given without considering that there must be green spaces, too.”
To them, "money comes before citizens’ health,” Reza said.
The problem worsens in Tehran during winter, when cold air and a lack of wind traps hazardous smog over the city for days on end, a phenomenon known as thermal inversion.
Most of the city’s pollution is caused by heavy vehicles, motorbikes, refineries and power plants, according to a World Bank report released last year.
"We can’t do anything but wait for wind to blow or rain to fall,” said student Bardia Danaie.