BANGKOK - Bangkok employees have been told to work from home to avoid harmful air pollution, as a layer of noxious haze blanketed the Thai capital on Feb 15.
The authorities asked for cooperation from employers to help workers in the city of some 11 million people avoid the pollution, which is expected to last until Feb 16.
The air monitoring website IQAir ranked Bangkok among the 10 most polluted cities in the world on Feb 15 morning.
Levels of the most dangerous PM2.5 particles – so tiny they can enter the bloodstream – were more than 15 times the World Health Organisation’s annual guideline, according to IQAir.
Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt said late on Feb 14 that all city employees would work from home from Feb 15 to 16. “I would like to ask for cooperation from the BMA (Bangkok Metropolitan Administration) network of 151 companies and organisations, both government offices and the private sector,” he said, adding that over 60,000 people were affected.
Mr Chadchart said at least 20 of Bangkok’s 50 districts were expected to have unhealthy levels of PM2.5 particles and the problem would linger because of calm weather.
Air quality in Thailand regularly plummets in the early months of the year as smoke from farmers burning stubble in the fields adds to industrial emissions and vehicle exhaust fumes.
Bangkok and the northern city of Chiang Mai ranked among the most polluted cities in the world on a number of days in 2023.
For many Bangkok residents, working from home is not an option.
Mr arukit Singkomron, 57, a motorcycle taxi driver on one of the capital’s busiest streets, was working despite his allergic reaction to the pollution.
“If I stay home, then I will starve,” he told AFP. “People like me have to go out to make ends meet.”
Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin held talks on Feb 15 with officials at the environment and natural resources ministry on tackling PM2.5 levels.
“We have a lot of problems with pollution at the moment, so we have to act immediately to reduce the effects on people,” he told reporters.
He said that around 25 per cent of pollution in Bangkok comes from vehicles, and in the longer term, restricting high-polluting diesel cars could be an option, along with measures to promote electric vehicles.
A public health crisis is brewing over the problem, with at least two million people in Thailand needing medical treatment because of pollution in 2023.
Mr Srettha’s government, which took over in August 2023, has promised to put the tackling of air pollution on a “national agenda”, and a draft Clean Air Act was endorsed by his Cabinet in January.
But the problem persists and a court in Chiang Mai in January ordered the government to come up with an urgent plan to tackle air pollution within 90 days. AFP
