Mesmerizing. Amazing. Massive. Amazing. Unprecedented.
Those are the words that have been circulating on social media to express what people in Jalandhar district, Punjab state, India are feeling.
Balbir Singh Seechewal, an environmental activist in Punjab state, said he had never seen anything like it. "We can see snow-capped mountains from our roofs. And not only that, we can also see the stars at night," said Mr Seechewal.
Former India cricketer Harbhajan Singh also said that it was an unprecedented experience. "I never saw Dhauladhar from the terrace of my house in Jalandhar. Never imagined that this was possible. This is a clear indication of the impact of our pollution on the earth," Singh tweeted.
Images of the snow-covered Himalayas are being widely shared on Indian social media.
India, a country of nearly 1.4 billion people, has been under lockdown to contain the COVID-19 pandemic since March 22. Not only public transport but most industries have also been shut down. This has helped bring pollution levels down to incredibly low levels. The Central Pollution Board of India said that air quality in the country has improved significantly.
In Delhi alone, the PM10 index on March 23 fell by 44% compared to the previous day. According to the India Today Data Intelligence Unit (DIU), the air quality index improved by an average of 33% across the country from March 16-27.
Online data shows that Indian cities had an average AQI of 115 between March 16 and 24. Air quality began to show improvement from the first day of the 21-day lockdown. The average AQI dropped to 75 in the first three days of the lockdown, according to the report.
The World Health Organization says the safe limit for air quality is when PM2.5 fine dust is below 20 mg/m3. India regularly records PM2.5 levels higher than 100 mg/m3, five times higher than the safety limit.
Pollution in India drops to incredibly low levels
The closure of businesses and all community activities to contain the Covid-19 pandemic also led to a decrease in NO concentrations.2pollution worldwide, according to observations by the European Union Space Agency (ESA) and data from the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite.
Skies over Los Angeles are cleaner and clearer as people reduce the use of cars, machinery and local manufacturing activities since March 23, 2020.
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