After 11 years of bringing you local reporting, the team behind the Vancouver Observer has moved on to Canada's National Observer. You can follow Vancouver culture reporting over there from now on. Thank you for all your support over the years!
blogheader_linda_final_large.jpg

Air pollution in Kathmandu off the charts

A sadhu in Kathmandu poses for a chunk of change. Photo by Linda Solomon.  Polluted Kathmandu pictured in a photo by Eli Krag.

By 2006, the World Health Organization (WHO) deemed it the most polluted city in Asia. It didn't take more than a minute of breathing it to conclude that over time, Kathmandu's air could kill you.  A WHO report confirms this.

WHO scientists estimate 537,000 people in Southeast Asia and the Pacific die prematurely each year due to air pollution. The level of PM10 in the air of Kathmandu is 120 microgram per square meter. As per the standard of the World Health Organization, the level of PM10 should be 20 microgram per square meter. The level of PM10 is higher than the official standard in most of the places of Kathmandu valley.

We had known to expect pollution. But the experience exceeded the expectation.

We'd travelled two days, spent sixteen hours total in an airplane and had crossed the dateline, to get here.

We dropped our backpacks onto the floor of the clean, stark room in Schechen Guest House, a hotel run by a monastery. 

Eli flopped down on the bed and buried his face in the pillow.  "My throat hurts," he said.

"It's the air," I said.

A muffled groan came from the pillow. 

Kathmandu in the dark on the way to the hotel from the airport had been hard to evaluate, beyond the obvious: people were poor.   Millions.   And the air stank and didn't go down easily into the lungs.  It was as bad or worse than the air I breathed in New York City right after 9/11.  I had fled  from post-World Trade Centre attack air, because I couldn't inhale it, and I believed it would do serious damage to my children's health.  And people here were much breathing worse, like it was normal. They were stuck in it. 

I had certainly HEARD about the pollution in big cities in the developing world.   I'd experienced it in the nineties. But  between the nineties and now, pollution had taken quantum leaps.   I thought of my friends in Canada working so hard to fight climate change.  By comparison Canada seemed so pristine.  Here was where the real work would need to happen.  Cities in the developing world.  Cities like Kathmandu.

Photos below by Eli Krag

Cremation fueled with wood at Pashupatinath Temple helps create a smokey Kathmandu

River as garbage dump in Kathmandu

I saw this in rivers and streams throughout the trek, as well, and I wondered what people would be drinking in years to come, as these river garbage dumps grow.

Boy walks along outside of moving bus in Kathmandu traffic

The risks people take with themselves make us look so careful here in Canada.  The chaos makes our culture look rigid and laden with rules that ultimately are unnecessary.  Or are they?

Female construction workers napping on top of rocks they've been carrying on their backs in Kathmandu

Traffic jam in Kathmandu

Soldiers wearing face masks to protect themselves from air pollution in Kathmandu

 

Street scenes from central Kathmandu

 

Next: More.

More in Publisher's Platform

Koch brothers make me mad

"For billionaires who cannot buy good press, there is the option of buying the press," The New Yorker says.

Michaƫlle Jean's Canadian love affair

Michaƫlle Jean isn't willing to reveal the juicy details about what went on behind the scenes at that pivotal point in Canadian history "on the day the Prime Minister came to me to ask for my...

Dragons' Den's Arlene Dickinson at the Board of Trade on the power of Persuasion

Two guys with a candy company called OMG's stand nervously pitching their product. Kevin O'Leary ridicules their valuation, and the other guys on the Dragons' Den scoff and bow out. None will put...
Speak up about this article on Facebook or Twitter. Do this by liking Vancouver Observer on Facebook or following us @Vanobserver on Twitter. We'd love to hear from you.