A layer of smog can be seen in the early hours of the morning at Wazirabad, in New Delhi, India, on October 18, 2025. Sanchit Khanna/Hindustan Times/Getty Images New Delhi —

Around 20 million people in India’s capital woke up on Wednesday breathing the most polluted air of any major city in the world, a day after celebrations for the Diwali festival, during which revelers typically set off fireworks and firecrackers.

As of Wednesday, New Delhi’s PM 2.5 concentration – a measure of pollutants in the air – was more than 40 times the World Health Organization’s annualized guideline level, according to Swiss air quality monitoring company IQAir.

New Delhi grapples with severe year-round pollution, but the winter months are typically worst, when millions of farmers in surrounding re

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