ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistani authorities are closing schools and markets and deploying artificial rain amid growing alarm over worsening levels of air pollution.
Environmental activists say pollution levels are approaching or may have exceeded levels in the most polluted parts of neighboring India, where smog has for years practically paralyzed the capital of New Delhi during the winter months.
Lahore, long known as Pakistan’s green “city of gardens,” has emerged as the country’s most polluted city. It now regularly tops global air pollution rankings, according to [Swiss technology company IQAir](https://www.iqair.com/world-most-polluted-cities), which tracks more than 7,000 cities around the world. Lahore’s 11 million residents may be losing more than seven years in average life expectancy due to poor air quality, [according to a University of Chicago estimate](https://aqli.epic.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Pakistan-FactSheet-2023_Final.pdf).
Pakistani officials have in recent weeks resorted to unprecedented short-term measures. In addition to closing schools and markets, the government has imposed traffic restrictions, and — when those efforts showed too little effect — turned to cloud-seeding technology, which involves dropping salts from a plane to trigger the formation of rain droplets.
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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistani authorities are closing schools and markets and deploying artificial rain amid growing alarm over worsening levels of air pollution.
Environmental activists say pollution levels are approaching or may have exceeded levels in the most polluted parts of neighboring India, where smog has for years practically paralyzed the capital of New Delhi during the winter months.
Lahore, long known as Pakistan’s green “city of gardens,” has emerged as the country’s most polluted city. It now regularly tops global air pollution rankings, according to [Swiss technology company IQAir](https://www.iqair.com/world-most-polluted-cities), which tracks more than 7,000 cities around the world. Lahore’s 11 million residents may be losing more than seven years in average life expectancy due to poor air quality, [according to a University of Chicago estimate](https://aqli.epic.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Pakistan-FactSheet-2023_Final.pdf).
Pakistani officials have in recent weeks resorted to unprecedented short-term measures. In addition to closing schools and markets, the government has imposed traffic restrictions, and — when those efforts showed too little effect — turned to cloud-seeding technology, which involves dropping salts from a plane to trigger the formation of rain droplets.
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