Schools shut in Lahore as city chokes in toxic smog

LAHORE REUTERS, 22 Nov, 2019-   Schools across Pakistan’s second largest city Lahore closed for the second time in a month on Friday, with the city blanketed in a toxic smog that experts say is putting residents at risk.   

 Every November, a combination of industrial pollution, burning waste and farm fires in neighbouring India fouls the air in Pakistan’s cultural capital, making it one of the world’s most polluted cities.   

 The Punjab state government has already ordered the closure of thousands of primitive brick kilns that dot the state in order to ease pollution.   

 But on Friday the Air Quality Index from a monitoring station at the United States’ consulate hit a year-high 451 out of a possible 500, a level considered “hazardous” and where even healthy people are advised to stay indoors.   

 Rights group Amnesty International called the government’s response inadequate, saying Pakistani authorities were playing down the crisis.