Hanoi always strives to ease air pollution and considers fighting air pollution as the city's priority, Vice Chairman of the Hanoi People's Committee Nguyen The Hung said at a recent government press meeting.Answering question why Hanoi ranked first among more than 10,000 cities worldwide in terms of air pollution, Hung said that the city’s authorities have taken a host of solutions to reduce fine dust concentration, improve air quality in urban areas and optimize the air quality measurement.
The Huc bridge at Hoan Kiem lake, down town Hanoi
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He added that poor treatment and collection of waste and wastewater along with untreated water pollution in some lakes are also among the causes.
Currently, Hanoi has 11 air quality monitoring stations with the Vietnamese standard. The indicators of NO2, SO2 are all at acceptable level, only that of fine dust exceeds it.
Hanoi’s authorities decided to make public the city’s air quality on a daily basis. Every five minutes, the data collected at monitoring stations will be supplied to the city’s newspapers of major circulation such as Hanoimoi, An ninh thu do, Cong an Nhan dan.
The city has taken many measures to improve the situation, including installing more monitoring stations, using machinery to collect waste and clean dust instead of doing the work manually, treating pond and lake pollution, urging people to stop using coal-fueled stoves and building waste-to-energy plants.
Hanoi has enhanced the management of road vehicles to reduce traffic congestion and pollution while promoting the use of public transport. Construction sites have been requested to be covered to avoid dust spreading.
Other solutions involve boosting communications to raise public awareness on improving air quality, planting more trees, and dissuading farmers to quit the long-standing practice of burning straw after harvesting.
Besides, Hanoi will also focus on giving people instructions of health protection when the air is polluted, especially the elderly and children.
On October 3, heavy rain has come to the capital city and helped improve its air quality considerably.
