Imagine waking under a blanket, but not the snuggly kind you cherish during chilly nights. No, this one is far from cozy. It’s a blanket of smog, covering the sky so thickly that the mountaintop of Chiang Mai, with its sunrise that should be breathtaking, becomes a silhouette obscured by an unwelcome gray. This was the scene captured by an early bird, Panumate Tanraksa, hoping to greet the dawn but met instead with a haze that camouflaged the sun.
The recent report isn’t about an isolated incident in a remote corner of the globe; it’s a phenomenon that has enveloped fifty provinces, a considerable stretch of Thailand, with air quality readings that raise eyebrows and health concerns. On a certain Tuesday morning, the air wasn’t just bad; it was alarmingly hazardous. Thirteen provinces, primarily nestled in the North, found themselves wrestling with pollution levels that aren’t just a casual footnote in the daily weather report but a serious red flag.
Mae Hong Son, a picturesque locale known for its tranquility, found itself topping the charts, but for all the wrong reasons. With a PM2.5 reading of 159.1 microgrammes per cubic metre of air, it shattered the government-set safe threshold of 37.5µg/m³. This wasn’t the serene claim to fame Mae Hong Son envisioned, finding itself an unwilling poster child for pollution’s grip on the nation.
Yet, Mae Hong Son wasn’t alone in its plight. The list read like a roll call of the North’s famed beauties – Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai, Lamphun, Phayao, and others, all draped in red, signaling levels of PM2.5 that were not just uncomfortable, but downright hazardous. The air that enveloped them was a cocktail of particulates, invisible yet insidious, turning these havens of nature into hotspots of health hazards.
However, the unwelcome hues of pollution weren’t restricted to the reds of serious harm. A palette ranging to the oranges of initial danger colored 37 other provinces across the North, the Northeast, and the Central Plain, with PM2.5 levels unsettlingly high, painting a dire picture of air quality, or the lack thereof.
It’s a narrative that shifts as you move across the map. The Central Plain, the East, and the South of Thailand tell a different story, where the air quality ranges from moderate to commendable. In this mixed bag of air quality reports, Phuket shines bright, boasting the best air quality with a PM2.5 level of 19.6µg/m³, almost like a breath of fresh air in a narrative clouded by pollution.
As Thailand grapples with this environmental quandary, from the tourists’ paradise in Phuket, breathing easy under clear skies, to the mountainous North choked by a smoky haze, it becomes apparent that the issue of air quality is not just a fleeting concern but a pressing challenge. It’s a tale of contrasts, of beauty shrouded and clarity sought, encapsulating the urgent need for solutions to clear the air, literally and metaphorically, for the sake of the land of smiles and its people.
