Milan was shrouded in smog on Tuesday as a row erupted over the northern Italian city being ranked as one of the world's most polluted cities, alongside Dhaka, Lahore and Chengdu.
The controversy began on Sunday, when Swiss real-time air quality website IQAir labeled Milan “unhealthy” because levels of fine particulate matter, or PM 2.5, in the city’s air were 24 times higher than the limit recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). IQAir ranked Milan as the third most polluted city in the world, after Dhaka in Bangladesh and Lahore in Pakistan.
Buildings are shrouded in fog in Milan on Monday (February 20). Photo: Reuters
On IQAir’s rankings, Milan even climbed to second place on Monday, behind China’s Chengdu, before dropping to 10th place on Tuesday (February 20). IQAir’s website says the agency collects data from “government stations and low-cost sensors owned by community scientists around the world.”
Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala, who has introduced some of the toughest anti-pollution measures since being elected to office in 2016, dismissed the IQAir data as “routine improvised analyses carried out by a private agency”.
Arpa Lombardy, an environmental agency in northern Italy, described IQAir’s assessment as “unreliable.” But Arpa also confirmed that Milan’s air had exceeded PM 2.5 limits in recent days, prompting a series of anti-pollution measures, including daytime traffic restrictions, to be introduced in Milan and eight other affected cities in the region.
Lombardy is part of the Po Valley, a vast geographical area in northern Italy that has some of the worst air pollution in Europe. A Guardian investigation last year found that more than a third of people living in the valley and surrounding areas breathe air that is four times the WHO guideline limit for dangerous particulate matter.
The problem has been exacerbated in recent days by unseasonably high temperatures and will ease with rain from Thursday, according to Guido Lanzani, director of air quality at Arpa Lombardy.
He said that while the region was experiencing “a severe period of air pollution,” the agency “cannot confirm what IQAir has published.” Speaking to LaPresse, Lanzani said the data on the site “changes hourly” and comes from “very different sources.”
According to the EEA news agency, poor air quality was linked to 50,303 premature deaths in Italy in 2020. Most of these were in Milan, but Cremona in Lombardy was the Italian province with the highest death rate – between 150 and 200 per 100,000 inhabitants – due to PM 2.5.
Nguyen Khanh (according to The Guardian)
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