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On Tuesday morning inhabitants of this heavily contaminated metropolis encountered breathing dangerously toxic air that registered in the "alarming" range.

Alarming Air Quality Readings

Various sections of the city recorded an pollution measurement above 500, which translates to a tenfold increase over the safe limit recommended by the WHO.

Particular areas, levels of PM2.5 and PM10 soared to of eighteen hundred, equating to 15-20x exceeding safe levels.

Firecracker Ban and Recent Changes

For the past four years, the government had enforced a complete ban on the purchase and ignition of fireworks during Diwali due to their major role to the hazardous smog that covers the city as the cold season begins.

Nevertheless earlier this year, the current city leadership approached the judicial authority to seek a modification of the ban.

They proposed allowing "green crackers" – previously criticized by environmental experts as being only approximately one-third lower impact – as a balance between "heritage and public health".

Judicial Decision and Implementation

Much to the frustration of public health and environmental activists, judges complied with the request, specifying that eco-friendly pyrotechnics could be ignited during limited time windows throughout the Diwali.

Throughout the festival evening, there was extensive flouting of the time restrictions across the city, with insufficient regulation regarding whether the fireworks being used were actually the more environmentally friendly type.

Several monitoring devices throughout the city registered air quality reaching highest levels around the night hours to extremely hazardous readings recorded during the festival in at least the past three years.

International Effects

The widespread use of pyrotechnics during Diwali also sparked a blame game with bordering Pakistan, with officials in Pakistan's the Punjab region pointing to worsening air quality in their urban centers on hazardous particles traveling from across the border following the celebrations.

Long-Standing Pollution Crisis

Alarmingly severe levels of atmospheric toxins in the capital have remained as a significant problem for over a decade and a half, with the problem gradually deteriorating.

Around celebratory seasons, the levels of toxic particulate matter in the environment has been found to spike to seventy percent above the most severe readings ever recorded in the Chinese city, which was formerly considered as the world's most polluted city.

Various Pollution Factors

The problem in the capital is resulting from a mix of multiple factors including transportation pollution, dust, building projects, waste incineration and pollutants from crop residue ignition in nearby areas of Punjab and Haryana.

Throughout these areas, agricultural workers routinely set their fields on fire to clear them quickly, creating toxic pollution that then gets trapped over the capital as colder air sets in.

Public Health and Economic Consequences

The economic and health consequences on the roughly thirty-three million residents calling home the capital region is substantial, according to various studies.

These hazardous conditions results in increased incidence of nervous system, heart and circulatory and breathing disorders, and can even lead to malignancies.

Environmental contamination is calculated to be accounting for approximately 10k premature fatalities per year in the capital.