BANGKOK: Air pollution forced nearly 200 schools in Bangkok to close on Thursday ( Jan 23 ), local authorities said, as officials urged people to work from home and restricted heavy vehicles in the city.
Annual air pollution has much afflicted Thailand, like many countries in the region, as warmer, stagnant winter weather combines with soot from grain stubble burning and car fumes.
By Thursday night, the Thai investment was the fifth most poisoned major city in the world, according to IQAir.
Levels of PM2. 5 contaminants- cancer-causing microparticles little enough to enter the bloodstream through the lungs- reach 122 micrograms per cubic inch.
The World Health Organization recommends 24-hour common exposure should not be more than 15 for most times of the year.
Earlier this month, Bangkok officials said colleges in areas with increased levels of PM2. 5 could choose to shut.
And by Friday night, 194 of the 437 institutions under the jurisdiction of the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority had shut their doors, affecting thousands of students.
The services range from nurseries to secondary colleges and the shutdown last from a day to a year.
Lots of other colleges in the money are not under BMA power and figures there were not accessible.
The number is the highest number of school closures since 2020, when all institutions under BMA power shut over weather pollution.
Earlier this month, officials encouraged people to work from house, but the system is deliberate and has just 100,000 registered members in a town of some 10 million.
Leaders have also restricted access for six-wheel vehicles in pieces of the funds until late Friday.
The government has announced opportunities to stop grain grass losing and is even trialling a novel method to handle air pollution by spraying cool water or dry ice into the atmosphere above the dust.
But the measures have had little influence thus much, and opposition politicians have accused Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra- now in Davos for the World Economic Forum- of failing to take the issue significantly.
” While the prime minister is breathing fresh air in Switzerland as she tries to attract more investment to Thailand… millions of Thais are breathing polluted air into their lungs,” Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut, leader of the People’s Party, charged in a Facebook post.