RIAU24.COM – Canada’s most populous city, Toronto, has been named the world’s most polluted major city after smoke from the country’s worst wildfires continued to affect air quality on Wednesday.
The severe effects of wildfires are reported in at least 15 US states. Smoke from the wildfires has hit cities across the United States and reached Europe thousands of miles away.
Air quality monitors quoted by the AFP news agency show that more than 100 million people face potentially unhealthy conditions.
Toronto’s Air Quality Health Index is placed at 10 out of 10, which is called a “high risk” air quality classification.
Switzerland-based IQAir rated Toronto’s air quality the worst of any major city in the world.
Toronto Public Health said Toronto Emergency Management was monitoring the impact of poor air quality on city services and critical infrastructure.
The city has suspended outdoor activities at its daycare. Depending on local conditions, school principals were given autonomy to decide whether or not to let children out of the house during recess.
The pollutant PM2.5 (PM for Particulate) is the most worrying multiple product of polluting stimuli such as fires.
Due to its small size of 2.5 microns or less, it can easily travel through the bloodstream, aggravating heart problems in susceptible people.
Warnings have been issued from Ontario to the northern US states of Minnesota and Michigan, through New York and into the southeastern states of North Carolina and Georgia.
The air quality warning comes as most of the southern United States and Midwest struggling with a strong heat wave affecting several million Americans.
The US National Weather Service has released a heat index forecast of up to 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46 degrees Celsius) in northern and central Texas.
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