Lahore [Pakistan], November 12 : Thick, toxic smog clouds enveloping Pakistani city Lahore , which has been reeling under severe pollution can in now visible from space as per satellite imagery taken by US space agency NASA, Geo News reported.
Various cities in Pakistan, including major ones like Multan and Islamanad are battling the smog crisis.
Geo News reported that cities of Lahore and Multan have been blanketed by the dark haze which engulfed streets and blocked buildings from view.
According to the Swiss air quality technology company IQAir Lahore on Tuesday turned out to have the most polluted air in the world. At noon today the Air Quality Index (AQI) in Lahore stood at 429 with one locality showing real time AQI reading of 720.
The deteriorating air quality in Pakistan saw the UNICEF issuing a warning that the highly polluted air in Punjab is posing severe risks to people, including more than 11 million children under the age of five, Geo News observed.
It stated that hundreds of people, including dozens of children, have been hospitalised in hard-hit cities, and the pollution is so severe that it is visible from space.
"As smog continues to persist in Punjab province, I am extremely concerned about the well-being of young children who are forced to breathe polluted, toxic air," Pakistan Unicef representative Abdullah Fadil said in a statement issued in Islamabad.
It is also important to note that the pollution has forced the authorities in Pakistan to close schools and public spaces because the smog threatens the health of tens of millions of people, Geo News noted.
Officials in Lahore have deemed this season as unprecedented even though major South Asian cities suffer with poisonous smog each year.
Experts stated that the severe pollution in Lahore can no longer be dismissed as seasonal, with hazardous smog persisting even in summer months, a sign of "systemic environmental mismanagement."
The crisis stems not just from stubble burning but from uncontrolled vehicular emissions, outdated industrial practices, and ineffective environmental oversight.