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On Tuesday morning inhabitants of this heavily contaminated metropolis found themselves inhaling severely hazardous air that was classified as the "alarming" range.

Alarming Air Quality Readings

Multiple areas of the city showed an air quality index above 500, which equals 10x the healthy threshold recommended by the global health authority.

Certain monitoring stations, readings of PM2.5 and PM10 hit highs of eighteen hundred, equating to 15-20x above safe standards.

Firecracker Prohibition and New Changes

For the past four years, authorities had enforced a comprehensive restriction on the purchase and ignition of fireworks during the Festival of Lights due to their major role to the hazardous smog that covers the capital as winter begins.

Nevertheless recently, the newly elected local government petitioned the judicial authority to propose a relaxation of the ban.

They proposed allowing "eco-friendly fireworks" – which have been criticized by environmentalists as being only about 30% lower impact – as a middle ground between "tradition and ecological concerns".

Court Decision and Reality

To the disappointment of medical and ecological advocates, judicial authorities complied with the request, mandating that eco-friendly pyrotechnics could be used during limited periods throughout the celebrations.

During the celebrations, there was widespread violation of the designated hours across the capital, with little regulation regarding whether the pyrotechnics being used were actually the eco-friendly version.

Many air quality sensors throughout the city registered contamination reaching highest levels around late evening to the most severe readings recorded during celebrations in at least three years.

Cross-Border Consequences

The proliferation of fireworks during Diwali also sparked a controversy with adjacent Pakistan, with representatives in Pakistan's the Punjab region partially attributing deteriorating pollution levels in their urban centers on hazardous particles traveling from across the border following the celebrations.

Chronic Environmental Crisis

Alarmingly severe concentrations of air contamination in the capital have remained as a significant challenge for over a decade and a half, with the problem continuing to worsen.

Around Diwali, the amount of hazardous particles in the environment has been observed to shoot up to significantly exceeding the most severe levels ever documented in Beijing, which was previously viewed as the planet's dirtiest urban center.

Various Pollution Factors

This crisis in the city is resulting from a mix of different contributors including heavy vehicle emissions, construction debris, building projects, rubbish burning and pollutants from farm burning in adjacent areas of neighboring agricultural zones.

Within these states, agricultural workers routinely set their fields on fire to prepare for next season, generating hazardous smog that becomes contained over the metropolitan area as cooler air arrives.

Public Health and Economic Consequences

The economic and health toll on the nearly 33 million people calling home the metropolitan zone is substantial, according to numerous research.

The contaminated air causes increased incidence of nervous system, heart and circulatory and lung conditions, and can potentially cause malignancies.

Air quality crisis is projected to be responsible for ten thousand premature mortalities each year in the capital.