Jakarta has become the world’s most polluted major city, air quality monitoring firm IQAir said, topping global charts for days as authorities fail to grapple with a spike in toxic smog.
Air pollution is estimated to contribute to 7 million premature deaths every year and is considered by the UN to be the single biggest environmental health risk.
The Indonesian capital and its surroundings form a megalopolis of about 30 million people that has outpaced other heavily polluted cities, including Riyadh, Doha and Lahore, all week for its concentration of tiny particles known as PM2.5.
Photo: EPA-EFE
It has topped Swiss company IQAir’s ranking of pollution data — which only tracks major cities — every day since Monday, according to an Agence France-Presse tally.
Jakarta has regularly recorded “unhealthy” levels of PM2.5, which can penetrate airways to cause respiratory problems, many times the WHO’s recommended levels.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo on Monday told reporters he plans to tackle pollution levels by reducing “Jakarta’s burden,” as the country prepares to move its capital to Nusantara on Borneo island next year.
He also said a planned metro train network across Jakarta “must be finished” to reduce pollution.
Residents have complained that the pollution caused by industrial smog, traffic congestion and coal-powered plants was affecting their lives and health.
“I have to wear a mask all the time. Both my body and my face are suffering,” said Anggy Violita, a 32-year-old officer worker in Jakarta.
“Last week, my entire family was sick for a week and the doctor told me I should stay indoors,” the mother-of-two added.
In 2021 a court ruled in favor of a lawsuit filed by activists and citizens against the government, ordering Widodo to clean up the city’s notorious air pollution, and ruling that he and other top officials had been negligent in protecting residents.
Indonesia has pledged to stop building new coal-fired power plants from this year and to be carbon neutral by 2050.
However, despite an outcry from activists, the government is expanding the enormous Suralaya coal plant on Java Island, one of the biggest in Southeast Asia.
Ten coal-fired power plants are operating within a 100km radius of the capital, Greenpeace Indonesia said.
A beauty queen who pulled out of the Miss South Africa competition when her nationality was questioned has said she wants to relocate to Nigeria, after coming second in the Miss Universe pageant while representing the West African country. Chidimma Adetshina, whose father is Nigerian, was crowned Miss Universe Africa and Oceania and was runner-up to Denmark’s Victoria Kjar Theilvig in Mexico on Saturday night. The 23-year-old law student withdrew from the Miss South Africa competition in August, saying that she needed to protect herself and her family after the government alleged that her mother had stolen the identity of a South
BELT-TIGHTENING: Chinese investments in Cambodia are projected to drop to US$35 million in 2026 from more than US$420 million in 2021 At a ceremony in August, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet knelt to receive blessings from saffron-robed monks as fireworks and balloons heralded the breaking of ground for a canal he hoped would transform his country’s economic fortunes. Addressing hundreds of people waving the Cambodian flag, Hun Manet said China would contribute 49 percent to the funding of the Funan Techo Canal that would link the Mekong River to the Gulf of Thailand and reduce Cambodia’s shipping reliance on Vietnam. Cambodia’s government estimates the strategic, if contentious, infrastructure project would cost US$1.7 billion, nearly 4 percent of the nation’s annual GDP. However, months later,
HOPEFUL FOR PEACE: Zelenskiy said that the war would ‘end sooner’ with Trump and that Ukraine must do all it can to ensure the fighting ends next year Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom early yesterday suspended gas deliveries via Ukraine, Vienna-based utility OMV said, in a development that signals a fast-approaching end of Moscow’s last gas flows to Europe. Russia’s oldest gas-export route to Europe, a pipeline dating back to Soviet days via Ukraine, is set to shut at the end of this year. Ukraine has said it would not extend the transit agreement with Russian state-owned Gazprom to deprive Russia of profits that Kyiv says help to finance the war against it. Moscow’s suspension of gas for Austria, the main receiver of gas via Ukraine, means Russia now only
‘HARD-HEADED’: Some people did not evacuate to protect their property or because they were skeptical of the warnings, a disaster agency official said Typhoon Man-yi yesterday slammed into the Philippines’ most populous island, with the national weather service warning of flooding, landslides and huge waves as the storm sweeps across the archipelago nation. Man-yi was still packing maximum sustained winds of 185kph after making its first landfall late on Saturday on lightly populated Catanduanes island. More than 1.2 million people fled their homes ahead of Man-yi as the weather forecaster warned of a “life-threatening” effect from the powerful storm, which follows an unusual streak of violent weather. Man-yi uprooted trees, brought down power lines and smashed flimsy houses to pieces after hitting Catanduanes in the typhoon-prone
RSS