KARACHI: The city’s air quality has deteriorated sharply in recent days, with thick pollution hanging over the skyline, officials and experts said.

While Lahore ranked the world’s most polluted city on Sunday with an air quality index (AQI) reading of 267, Karachi came in at sixth place with an AQI of 160 at 10pm, according to monitoring platform IQAir.

A Met official said that the haze visible across the city was neither fog nor smog in the traditional sense. He explained that in the past some days north-easterly winds were very weak, almost stagnant, preventing pollutants from dispersing.

“This is not smog or fog. These are suspended pollutants like smoke from vehicles and emissions from factories that are trapped near the surface due to calm weather,” he said. “Normally, winds carry away these particles, but in recent days, the air was still, making the pollution much more noticeable.”

He added that this condition is typical during October and November, when changing seasonal patterns often bring reduced wind speeds. The official noted that Karachi’s situation is still relatively better than Punjab’s, where higher humidity levels contribute to the formation of smog during the same period.

Published in Dawn, October 27th, 2025