Dhaka air ranks 4th worst

2. Screen grab taken from the website Air Visual on 11 January 2020

Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka ranked 4th worst in Air Quality Index (AQI) on Saturday.

The independent live air-quality index monitor, Air Visual, shows Dhaka's AQI value as 206 around 11:25am.

Bosnia Herzegovina’s Sarajevo topped in poor air with an AQI value of 515 while Afghanistan's Kabul and India's Delhi stood the second and third on the worst air city list with AQI values 240 and 211 respectively.

Around 8:51am today, Dhaka ranked third in the list, according to UNB.

Earlier, Dhaka had topped the list on 17, 23 November, 26 December and 6 January.

The AQI is a tool for measuring daily air quality of any city or country. It refers to the degree of pollution or cleanliness of the air. An AQI score between 201 and 300 indicates the air is unhealthy for health while a value over 300 refers the air is highly dangerous with possible serious health complications.

In Bangladesh, the AQI is based on five criteria pollutants -- Particulate Matter (PM10 and PM2.5), NO2, CO, SO2 and Ozone (O3), according to UNB.

The environment department has also set national ambient air quality standards for these pollutants. These standards aim to protect against adverse human health impacts.

Dhaka has long been suffering from a number of environmental pollutions including that of air.