Bangkok

Air quality around Bangkok is bad today

Published

6 days ago

January 11, 2019

The Thaiger

PHOTO: The Nation

Bangkok’s air quality is safe again.

Oh, now it’s unsafe again.

Just a day after the air quality around Bangkok was declared safe, the Pollution Control Department (PCD) is blaming light winds and stale air for causing the poor air quality for Friday.

PCD director-general Pralong Damrongthai says that air quality monitoring stations showed the amount of PM2.5 dust particles in 19 areas, especially those along busy roads, exceeded safe levels and could potential pose health hazards.

Pralong says people in Bangkok should have noticed that the sky was hazy and the air stale this morning.

“When added to the morning fog, the general air quality has worsened, although not as bad as it was last week.”

He says that to solve the air pollution problem long-term that he had proposed Deputy PM Prawit Wongsuwan and the national police chief, Pol Gen Chakthip Chaijinda at a recent meeting, that traffic congestion problems must be tackled in earnest, noting that car emissions as well as dust particles from construction sites were the main cause of the pollution.

He hopes that air quality in the city would improve once all the mass transit projects are completed in the next 1-2 years which would encourage motorists to switch to public transport and more hybrid cars to replace fuel-powered vehicles.

SOURCE: Thai PBS

Bangkok

Bangkok smog: Police on the lookout for dirty exhaust from vehicles

Published

14 hours ago

January 16, 2019

The Thaiger & The Nation

Bangkok smog: Police on the lookout for dirty exhaust from vehicles | The Thaiger

by Khanathit Srihirundaj

It’s either a knee-jerk reaction, media stunt or something we hope to see a lot more of.

Checking vehicles with plumes of dirty smoke coming out of their exhaust.

To help curb fine-particle dust pollution in Bangkok, traffic police have increased the number of checkpoints where they will check vehicles spewing black exhaust smoke.

The number of checkpoints was increased on Tuesday to 20 from the previous 12, leading to 1,000 vehicles being cited and fined, traffic police commander Pol Maj-General Jirasan Kaewsang-ek said on Wednesday.

Jirasan said diesel-engine vehicles were the main culprits, along with too-old engines, and they together made a large contribution to the 60 per cent of the polluting PM2.5 particulates that were attributed to vehicle engines.

Police are putting an emphasis on removing the exhaust-spewing vehicles from the most pollution-prone areas such as Bung Kum and Chatuchak districts.

As there was insufficient staff for the checkpoints, police would ask that some officials from the Pollution Control Department be assigned to aid them during this period, Jirasan said.

In future, police may impound the vehicles or suspend the vehicle’s use as a more severe punishment, he added.

SOURCE: The Nation

Bangkok

Bangkok smog: Chatuchak school closes for the rest of the week

Published

18 hours ago

January 16, 2019

The Thaiger & The Nation

Bangkok smog: Chatuchak school closes for the rest of the week | The Thaiger

A kindergarten in Chatuchak, to the north of central Bangkok, has suspended classes because of air pollution that has landed Bangkok in the top 10 list of worst-polluted cities.

Bangkok still lags far behind some of the world’s most polluted cities, including the Afghani capital Kabul (at 576), Delhi in India (306) and Mongolia’s Ulaanbaatar (300). But the Top 10 worst air-pollution list is not the list Bangkok wants to be in.

Bangkok and Pattaya remain in the ‘unhealthy’ or ‘unsafe’ levels today whilst some cities in northern Thailand are also suffering with poor air quality.

Surang Khamneungnet, director of Jananan Kindergarten in Chatuchak, said pupils had been kept indoors in recent days and the grounds sprayed with water three times a day, but the children had become listless and were eating less.

The school is closed for National Teachers Day today anyway but will remain closed tomorrow and Friday because of the air pollution, she said.

Chulalongkorn University logistics expert Manoj Lohatepanont at a seminar on Tuesday advised schools to consider closing temporarily to reduce health risks for students and curb the number of cars on the roads, one source of PM2.5.

PM Prayut Chan-o-cha separately said the Education Ministry should use its discretion in deciding whether “at-risk” schools should be closed.

SOURCE: The Nation | aqicn.org

Bangkok

Crisis meetings in Bangkok today over smog solutions

Published

20 hours ago

January 16, 2019

The Thaiger & The Nation

Crisis meetings in Bangkok today over smog solutions | The Thaiger

PHOTOS: The Nation

Urgent meetings are being held in Bangkok today to address the acute smog problems in the capital.

The Pollution Control Department and Bangkok Metropolitan Administration are gathering today in their latest efforts to battle with the persistent smog while dust particles continue to blanket the capital with smog levels alarming locals and causing tourists to cancel their holidays.

The meeting was organised after the authorities concerned rushed rushed to find solutions to help ease the problem, including cleaning roads more often, spraying water over Greater Bangkok’s sky (useless), trying to produce artificial rain with cloud-seeding and enforcing strict laws against vehicles emitting excessive exhaust fumes.

PM General Prayut Chan-o-cha “has instructed relevant authorities to introduce additional measures to deal with this situation”, Government Spokesman Puttipong Punnakanta said.

The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) and the Army’s efforts to spray water to ease the pollution on Monday night and yesterday morning did not appear to help much.

For instance, pollution was marginally brought down to 90 from 96 on Monday and to 71 yesterday on Phaholyothin Road in the capital.