2023-06-07 22:43:40
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The major fires still active in Canada are the cause of this degradation of the air covering the sky of the “Big Apple” with an orange veil. 100 million Americans were affected by air quality alerts on Wednesday.
The famous Statue of Liberty and “skylineof Manhattan shrouded in an eerie yellow-orange fog: Quebec wildfires obscure New York, 800 km to the south, and make the air unbreathable for its 8.5 million inhabitants. The city indeed became for a few hours the most polluted in the world, exceeding New Delhi. According to the Swiss institute IQAir, the index exceeded the 200 threshold for some time, which is equivalent to an air “very unhealthy“. The concentration of PM2.5 micro-particles is at a level more than ten times higher than the standards of the World Health Organization.
For more than a month, Canada has been dealing with forest fires of a unprecedented scale, especially in Quebec, a few kilometers from the American border. 100 million Americans were affected Wednesday by air quality alerts because of the smoke caused by these fires, according to the environmental protection agency. These alerts cover most of the northeastern United States, from Chicago in the north to Atlanta in the south.
A passenger wears a mask on the Staten Island ferry in New York on June 6, 2023. ED JONES / AFP
In Canada, 214 fires are still active, including 93 out of control according to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Fumes from the fires have made the air toxic in New York. The authorities have even recommended that people at risk stay at home and protect their respiratory tract with a mask. “If you are a New Yorker with heart or respiratory problems, be careful when outdoors», “try to limit outdoor activities today to what is absolutely necessary“, they warned on Twitter.
Senator Chuck Schumer, Democratic Senate Majority Leader in Washington said to himself “saddened that New York City, which usually enjoys good air quality, has one of the worst in the world because of these wildfiresin Quebec, 800 km to the north.
“You can’t even see the Statue of Liberty”
All flights departing or arriving at New York airports are delayed at best. According to state governor Kathy Hochul, the air quality index went fromharmful” To “very harmfuland all outdoor school and extracurricular activities are suspended. “It’s not the day to train for the marathon“, warned, with his sense of understatement, the mayor of the city Eric Adams.
«You can’t even see the Statue of Libertyprotests Jack Wright from the banks of the East River in Brooklyn. This 76-year-old former lawyer claims to have “quit smoking 50 years agobut he says “to coughlike when he was a smoker. Covid masks are reappearing on the streets of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, like Hugh Hill walking his dog in Central Park, the gigantic green lung of the economic and cultural capital of the United States. The eyes and the throat whichsting“, this 43-year-old lawyer says he does everything not to breathe too much of this air with the acrid smell, characteristic of burnt wood. “I don’t know if it’s psychological or physical but I know there are advantages to wearing a mask even if, obviously, it can’t prevent everythinghe confides to AFP.
Right in the center of Manhattan, the financial and business heart of the megalopolis, the atmospheric conditions are getting worse every hour: an increasingly thick yellow-orange fog around the skyscrapers and an almost unbreathable air for the employees of office rushing to get lunch. The situation is even worse in the large, upscale, green suburbs north of the Bronx along the Hudson River, where the sky turns yellow-orange-grey and the air scrapes your throat.
The Statue of Liberty from the Staten Island Ferry during heavy smog in New York City, June 6, 2023. ED JONES / AFP
Further south, the federal capital Washington woke up to a pungent smell and under a hazy sky, with an air qualityharmful» for the most vulnerable people. As in New York and the state of Maryland, public schools have canceled outdoor activities for children, including sports.
The Empire State Building as haze and smoke from wildfires in Canada spread above the Manhattan skyline in New York on June 7, 2023. ANDREW KELLY / REUTERS
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