Lahore on Thursday once again experienced hazardous air quality, ranking as the most polluted city globally with an Air Quality Index (AQI) exceeding 1,000, as the government worked to address the ongoing smog “calamity”.

The public has been barred from entering public parks, zoos, playgrounds, and museums while the schools across the province were shut until November 17 to reduce public exposure to smog.

Earlier this week, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) representative in Pakistan had called for urgent and greater efforts to reduce air pollution, noting that over 11 million children under five years of age were exposed to smog in the worst affected districts of Punjab.

In Lahore, the Air Quality Index (AQI) remained consistently hazardous over the last 24 hours — peaking at 1,537 — ranking it as the most polluted city in the world.

The AQI levels for various other Punjab cities, including Multan (459), Faisalabad (405), Pindi Bhattian (373), and Mangla (356), were also above 300.

The index categorises an AQI ranking above 300 as “hazardous”.

Closure of roads

Separately, the Punjab government announced, according to a road and weather report issued by the National Highway and Motorway Police at 10am today, the closure of five toll plazas — four on the M4 motorway Toba Tek Singh and one from the sub-sector in Khanewal — due to smog.

Previously, the authorities had closed the M1 Motorway from Charsadda to Akbar Pura, the M2 Motorway from Lahore to Kot Sarwar, the M3 Motorway from Samandari to Darkhana, and the M4 Motorway from Pindi Bhattian to Abdul Hakeem. Traffic was also restricted on the M5 Motorway from Shersha to Jhangra, while the Lahore-Sialkot Motorway was also completely blocked.

According to a statement issued by Multan City Police Officer (CPO) Multan Sadiq Ali Dogar, police had deployed 457 officers to assist the district administration, Environmental Protection Agency, agriculture department, waste management and industries to carry out “anti-smog initiatives”, which had resulted in a reduction in smog levels from 1914 to 339 AQI today.

It said that police impounded 1157 smoke-emitting vehicles, imposed fines worth Rs1.2 million on vehicles that emit smoke and registered 128 cases against brick kilns.

It added that the police had closed 12 industrial facilities and smoke-emitting mobile oil reclamation plants.

The police also identified places where factories were burning waste and garbage and registered five cases against them, it said.

Fifty-two cases were registered against stubble burning of paddy crops while tractor trolleys transporting sand for construction purposes were impounded.

Shops were closed at 8pm with effective implementation, the statement said.

The police also conducted regular visits to suspected stubble-burning sites and brick kilns to deter violations while a public awareness campaign was also being run.