Death by pollution: Delhi’s fight for clean air

The night before the biggest exam of his life, Sarthak Jain couldn’t breathe. His limbs were listless, his breathing labored.

Jain’s parents, both trained doctors, recognized the signs of a severe asthma attack. They put the 18-year-old in the family car and raced to a nearby hospital. Doctors determined that Jain was suffering from low levels of oxygen in his blood. His life was in danger. Jain was given injections and put on a nebulizer. His relatives, told to prepare for the worst, huddled together in the intensive care unit and cried.

Jain is one of 20 million Delhi residents forced to breathe the world’s most polluted air. While Beijing grabs the headlines for poor air quality, scientists say the pollution here is far worse. In 2014, the World Health Organization released data on air quality in 1,600 cities, and Delhi was found to have the highest concentration of particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers, also called PM 2.5. Read More…