Hello and welcome to the details of Bangkok shuts nearly 200 schools as toxic air chokes city and now with the details
Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - A bus drives on a bridge over the Chao Phraya river amid high air pollution levels in Bangkok on January 21, 2025. — AFP pic
BANGKOK, Jan 23 — Air pollution forced nearly 200 schools in Bangkok to close on Thursday, local authorities said, as officials urged people to work from home and restricted heavy vehicles in the city.
Seasonal air pollution has long afflicted Thailand, like many countries in the region, as colder, stagnant winter air combines with smoke from crop stubble burning and car fumes.
By Thursday morning, the Thai capital was the sixth most polluted major city in the world, according to IQAir.
Level of PM2.5 pollutants — cancer-causing microparticles small enough to enter the bloodstream through the lungs — hit 122 micrograms per cubic metre.
The World Health Organization recommends 24-hour average exposures should not be more than 15 for most days of the year.
Earlier this week, Bangkok authorities said schools in areas with elevated levels of PM2.5 could choose to close.
And by Thursday morning, 194 of the 437 schools under the authority of the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority had shut their doors, affecting thousands of students.
Dozens of other schools in the capital are not under BMA authority and figures there were not available.
The figure is the highest since 2020, when all schools under BMA authority shut over air pollution.
Vulnerable children
Children are especially vulnerable to the impacts of air pollution, but rights advocates warned that closures disproportionately affect the most vulnerable students.
“School closures should be a last resort,” said Severine Leonardi, Unicef Thailand deputy representative.
“There really needs to be a wake-up call on the need to invest in the education system and protect children,” she told AFP.
Earlier this week, authorities encouraged people to work from home, but the scheme is voluntary and has just 100,000 registered participants in a city of some 10 million.
Officials have also limited access for six-wheel trucks in parts of the capital until late Friday.
The government has announced incentives to stop crop stubble burning and is even trialling a novel method to tackle air pollution by spraying cold water or dry ice into the air above the smog.
But the measures have had little impact so far, and opposition politicians have accused Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra — currently in Davos for the World Economic Forum — of failing to take the issue seriously.
“While the prime minister is breathing fresh air in Switzerland as she tries to attract more investment to Thailand... millions of Thais are breathing polluted air into their lungs,” Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut, leader of the People’s Party, charged in a Facebook post.
Clean air activists have been pushing for legislation that could pass later this year.
“You really need comprehensive legislation on all the different dimensions of the crisis,” said Guillaume Rachou, executive director at Save the Children Thailand.
“It’s difficult but I think with the Clean Air Act, we’re getting there,” he told AFP. — AFP
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