Diwali as a festival of resplendently shimmering
lights presents enticing festivity everywhere, be it residential colonies,
shopping complexes or markets. The warmth of love that the people exchange in
the form of greetings and gifts makes Diwali all the more brightly beautiful.
Over rejoicing at the celebratory occasion with
increasing amount of fire-work is deleteriously telling on the fragile health
of both people and the environment alike. Over zealous children, youngsters and
reckless parents get bent upon to mar the serenity of the festival by resorting
to play with varied high-decibel-high-polluting fire-crackers and bombs, even
several days before Diwali and obliviously continue to pollute the environs and
destroy the peace, tranquility and health of the ailing and the normal people
alike. The highly toxic gases produced by burning of the gun powder billow into
the atmosphere and trigger the latent respiratory diseases in the exposed
people.
Air in Moradabad is already replete with pollutants
and effete for the healthy breathing. The unbridled functioning of unsafe
furnaces in the factories as well as the ever-increasing vehicular traffic spew
tons of litres of deadly toxicants into the atmosphere. To make matter worse,
enormous burning of fire-works on the eve of Diwali vitiates the
already-insulted atmosphere with dangerous toxicants like Sulphur Dioxide,
Carbon Dioxide, Carbon Monoxide (the silent killer), oxides of nitrogen, fumes
of poisonous oxides of heavy metals like Chromium, Manganese, Nickel, Copper,
Lead, Cadmium, Iron, etc. The toxic gases having high density tend to remain in
the lowest layer of the atmosphere, called Troposphere, and concentrate in the
congested areas of the city and houses. These pollutants irritate the skin,
mucous membranes of eyes, ears, nose and throat, causing multiple morbid
problems and diseases like asthma, damage to cornea and ear drum, heart
diseases, headaches, dizziness, etc, in addition to a spate in the accidental
burns.
Areas around Ramganga river have higher percentages
of water vapour in the air. Large volumes of Sulphur Dioxide and oxides of
nitrogen emitted during the play of fire-work, dissolve in the water vapour and
turn into tiny droplets of pure acid floating in the smog (smoke plus fog). The
airborne acid and particulate matter are dangerously irritant to the lungs. The
airborne acid also slowly defaces the costly buildings and other property.
Air Pollution can expand beyond a regional area to
cause serious global problems. The pollutants(CFC's) are responsible for
damaging the vital ozone layer, spread by God for our protection from the most
energetic UV radiations of the sunlight. That is why there are now more news of
skin cancers, cataracts and reduced yield of some crops. Carbon Dioxide is the
main culprit associated with global warming. The increasing levels of this gas
retain the heat of radiations which should otherwise escape from the earth into
the upper atmosphere after the day's heat.
Surging to dangerous levels of several ppm above the
indicated safe limit by WHO, Sulphur Dioxide is the major polluting gas during
the Diwali days, in the air we are forced to breath in. Another serious problem
is of the noise pollution that is caused by explosion of the high decibel
bombs. Human ears cannot tolerate noise louder than 80-90 dB. The government
has so far been unable to put a check on the sale and use of these high
intensity bombs. The undeterred explosions of these bombs are making the people
partially deaf. The horrendous surge in
levels of air pollutants scares away the older and asthmatic people to flee to
safer destinations in the countryside or sparsely inhabited parts of the town.
To the ailing and suffering patients approach of Diwali gives them nightmares
of discomfort and sufferings.
Dr Saleem Saim is an Ex Research Fellow of Indian
Council of Medical Research, New Delhi and a PhD from Industrial Toxicology Research
Centre, Lucknow, India.
