Delhi to spray water in smog battle

NEW DELHI, Nov 10 (Agencies): India plans to spray water over its capital, New Delhi, to try to combat toxic smog that has triggered a pollution emergency, official said on Friday, with conditions expected to get worse over the weekend.

Illegal crop burning in farm states surrounding New Delhi, vehicle exhaust in a city with limited public transport and swirling construction dust have caused the crisis, as they do year after year.

"Sprinkling water is the only way to bring down the dangerous pollution levels," said Shruti Bhardwaj, the environment ministry's senior most official in charge of monitoring air quality.

The government was finalising the plans to spray the water from a height of 100 metres, which would be unprecedented, she said, without saying how much of the city of 22 million people would be covered.

The thick blanket of grey air and pollutants has enveloped Delhi for the past four days.

A US embassy measure of tiny particulate matter, called PM 2.5, showed a reading of 523 at 9 am on Friday - the outer limit of "good" air is 50. PM 2.5 is about 30 times finer than a human hair. The particles can be inhaled deep into the lungs, causing heart attacks, strokes, lung cancer and respiratory diseases.

The air has remained consistently in the "hazardous" category or beyond those levels, despite a litany of government measures:ordering a halt to all construction activities, restricting vehicular movement and raising parking charges four times to push residents to use public transport.