Kathmandu- New Delhi remains the most polluted city in the world, World Health Organization (WHO) said in a report released on Tuesday.
WHO compiled air quality data for mega-cities with a population of 14 million or more and found that Greater Cairo in Egypt is the second most polluted city after Delhi followed by Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. While Mumbai stood fourth in pollution, Beijing came out to be the fifth most polluted city in the world, the report said.
Ambient air pollution alone caused around 4.2 million deaths in 2016, while household air pollution from cooking with polluting fuels and technologies caused an estimated 3.8 million deaths in the same period, the report states.
WHO recognizes that air pollution is a critical risk factor for non-communicable diseases (NCDs), causing an estimated one-quarter (24%) of all adult deaths from heart disease, 25% from stroke, 43% from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and 29% from lung cancer. According to WHO, nine out of 10 people around the world breathe polluted air.
