NEW DELHI
\nResidents in India\u2019s capital again woke under a blanket of choking smog on Friday, a day after authorities closed primary schools and imposed measures aimed at alleviating the annual crisis.
\nNew Delhi and the surrounding metropolitan area, home to more than 30 million people, consistently top world rankings for air pollution in winter.
\nThe smog is blamed for thousands of premature deaths every year and is an annual source of misery for residents, with various piecemeal government initiatives failing to measurably address the problem.
\nAll primary schools were shut by government order on Thursday night with young pupils \u2014 particularly vulnerable to smog-related ailments due to their age \u2014 instead moving to online lessons.
\n\u201cI have an eight-year-old kid and he has been suffering from a cough the past couple of days,\u201d Delhi resident Satraj said on the streets of the capital.
\n\u201cThe government did the right thing by shutting down schools.\u201d
\nThursday\u2019s edict also banned construction work, ordered drivers of older diesel-powered vehicles to stay off the streets and directed water trucks to spray roads in a bid to clear dust particles from the air.
\nLevels of PM2.5 pollutants \u2014 dangerous cancer-causing microparticles that enter the bloodstream through the lungs \u2014 were recorded more than 26 times above the World Health Organization\u2019s recommended daily maximum shortly after dawn on Friday.
\nThousands of fires
\nCritics have consistently said that authorities have fallen short in their duty to tackle a crisis that blights the city every year.
\n\u201cWe haven\u2019t responded to the emergency with the same intensity with which we are facing this crisis,\u201d Sunil Dahiya of New Delhi-based advocacy group Envirocatalysts said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW DELHI Residents in India\u2019s capital again woke under a blanket of choking smog on Friday, a day after authorities closed primary schools and imposed measures aimed at alleviating the annual crisis. New Delhi and the surrounding metropolitan area, home to more than 30 million people, consistently top world rankings for air pollution in winter. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444055,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-444034","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n