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As Tuesday dawned citizens of the world's most polluted city found themselves exposed to severely hazardous air that fell into the "alarming" range.

Record-Breaking Air Quality Levels

Several parts of Delhi registered an AQI over 500, which represents ten times the healthy level recommended by the global health authority.

Particular areas, concentrations of dangerous airborne particles reached peaks of eighteen hundred, representing 15-20x exceeding healthy levels.

Fireworks Ban and Current Developments

For the past four years, authorities had implemented a total prohibition on the sale and use of fireworks during the Festival of Lights due to their significant contribution to the hazardous smog that covers the capital as the cold season sets in.

Yet earlier this year, the newly elected local leadership petitioned the supreme court to request a easing of the restrictions.

Officials advocated for allowing "eco-friendly fireworks" – historically criticized by environmentalists as being only about 30% reduced emissions – as a balance between "tradition and ecological concerns".

Court Decision and Implementation

Much to the frustration of medical and ecological activists, judges approved the request, specifying that environmentally conscious fireworks could be used during designated periods throughout the festival.

During the celebrations, there was widespread flouting of the time restrictions across the city, with little monitoring regarding whether the fireworks being used were actually the more environmentally friendly type.

Numerous monitoring devices throughout the city recorded air quality reaching highest levels around late evening to extremely hazardous measurements observed during the festival in at least the past three years.

International Effects

The widespread use of firecrackers during the festival also triggered a dispute with adjacent the neighboring country, with officials in Pakistani Punjab partly blaming deteriorating air quality in Lahore on hazardous particles originating in neighboring India following the events.

Long-Standing Environmental Crisis

The dangerously high concentrations of atmospheric toxins in the city have remained as a major challenge for fifteen-plus years, with the condition gradually deteriorating.

Around the festival period, the amount of toxic particulate matter in the environment has been observed to shoot up to significantly exceeding the most severe levels ever documented in China's capital, which was once considered as the globally most contaminated metropolis.

Various Contamination Factors

This crisis in the city is resulting from a convergence of various sources including transportation pollution, dust, construction activities, garbage fires and haze from crop residue ignition in neighbouring states of farming communities.

Within these states, rural residents routinely ignite agricultural waste to clear them quickly, generating hazardous haze that remains stagnant over the metropolitan area as winter air arrives.

Medical and Financial Consequences

Both financial and medical toll on the approximately 33 million people calling home the Delhi area is substantial, according to numerous research.

The contaminated air results in increased incidence of nervous system, heart and circulatory and lung diseases, and can potentially cause oncological diseases.

Environmental contamination is estimated to be accounting for 10,000 early fatalities per year in the capital.