Tehran’s Pollution Crisis

Optimistic figures indicate that Tehran’s air pollution has killed 107 Tehrani residents during the last month. The emergency situation in Tehran’s pollution has forced millions of its residents to stay home for days during the year, while the chairman of Tehran’s City Council believes that the crisis is the effect of a serious environmental phenomenon.

The executive director of Tehran’s biggest cemetery says that the death rate due to air pollution has increased four times in comparison to last year’s figures. But the problem is not confined to Tehran alone and exists in most major cities of Iran. Isfahan’s top official on the environment recently had issued a warning about the critical air pollution situation that is looming over that large city.

Economy specialists contend that every time government or city officials announce a high-pollution day, thus closing schools and other organizations whose members may be at health risk, the city’s businessmen loose about 1000 billion Rials a day. Some urban planning experts attribute the current catastrophic situation to the years when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the Mayor of Tehran.

Tehran’s air pollution has now turned into a very serious, dangerous and critical problem for its residents. Just last week alone, the pollution levels in Tehran were so high and dangerous that authorities were forced to close down schools, which lead to the cancellation of many public events for a few days.

Hundreds of Tehrani residents were transferred to hospitals because of the air pollution that produced heart, lungs and respiratory problems during the 5-day emergency period in the city. In this regard, the head of Tehran’s Emergency Unit said that during a 24-hour period, 283 heart and respiratory patients had been treated in the emergency unit. He added that there was an increase of 30 to 40 percent in the number of patients referred to the unit during the period.

An official in Tehran’s Medical Science University also has said that around 5 to 9 thousands Tehranis die due to air pollution every year. Political observers blame the city council officials and Tehran mayors for the critical situation that has lead to the death of hundreds of its residents during the last month. They assert that city officials have been neglecting the pollution problem while they spent large amounts of the city’s budget on election campaigning for the president which has seated many city council officials in key and high positions of Ahmadinejad’s government.

Because of the harsh and suppressive atmosphere since the new administration,
environmentalist NGOs too have been silent over the issue in recent months. Critics of independent NGOs have jumped on the bandwagon and using the pollution crises allege that these bodies had never played a successful role and thus should be controlled by the government.

In the words of many Tehranis, as the pollution crisis in Tehran grows in magnitude, they too breathe more death than oxygen with every passing day. Iranian automobile factories continue to manufacture sub-standard vehicles while government officials are focused on one crises and the other with the goal of simply holding to their positions and power.