by It seems like the COVID-19 pandemic has changed our lives for good. The new virus that keeps spreading so fast all around the world left us shocked and terrified.
However, many people believe that it is going to teach us a valuable lesson about the most essential things in our lives – healthy, family, and our environment.
The lockdown that was issued by many governments around the world, reduced the global pollution drastically, therefore at least the nature benefits from all of this.
One of the most dramatic reductions in air pollution was seen in India, and the residents from the northern part of the country claim that they have seen parts of the Himalayas for the first time in a couple of decades.
People in Jalandhar district of Punjab in India, and many of them claimed that they have never seen the peeks of the Himalayas from their windows.
Sant Balbir Singh Seechewal, who’s been working to raise the awareness of environmental pollution for more than 30 years, claims also that he has never witnessed anything close to this:
We are able to see the mountain peaks covered in snow, clearly from our roofs. And that’s not all, stars are also visible at night. I haven’t seen anything like it in years!
Also many people have shared pictures of the snow-clad Dhauladhar range of Himalayas, which is also visible from more than one hundred miles away.
Harbhajan Singh, former Indian cricketer also wrote in a Twitter post:
Never seen the Dhauladar range from the rooftop at my home in Jalandhar. I didn’t think it was possible. A clear indication of the impact the pollution has done by us to the Earth.
Since the start of the across the country time limitation, actualized on March 22, and the lockdown requested by Prime Minister Narendra Modi two days after the fact, air contamination has dropped to ‘incredible low levels’, as separated from traffic, most industry is closed down too.
Modi requested “an all out prohibition on wandering out of your homes” and just fundamental administrations stayed operational, for example, water, power, health and fire administrations, goods stores and city administrations.
The India Today Data Intelligence Unit (DIU) announced that from March 16-27, the air quality file improved by 33% on a normal in the nation. The report recommended that air quality in 85 urban areas had improved essentially. Moreover,
Data shows that overall, Indian urban areas had an AQI of 115 between March 16 and 24. The air quality began demonstrating upgrades from the primary day of the 21-day lockdown. The normal AQI tumbled to 75 in the initial three days of the lockdown.
As per the World Health Organization, as far as possible for air quality is to keep the particulate issue PM2.5 beneath 20mg/m3. In India, records are multiple times higher during the vast majority of the year.
While it’s still not clear if the increased visibility is a result of the national lockdown only, India’s Central Pollution Control Board reported on March 31st that it had resulted an improvement in the air quality all over the country, as revealed by the data analysis, and the comparison of data for time before the restrictions.
