Bad air, water kills: At 2.5 mn, India tops list for pollution-linked deaths

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India recorded the most number of premature deaths because of pollution in 2015 at 2.51 million lives lost, followed by China at 1.8 million deaths, a recent study has revealed

LATEST NEWS : India recorded the most number of premature deaths because of pollution in 2015 at 2.51 million lives lost, followed by China at 1.8 million deaths, a recent study has revealed. The findings coincide with the festival of Diwali, which has been synonymous with smoke-choked air due to the rampant bursting of firecrackers across the country.

Citing The Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health, a two-year initiative seeking to highlight the issue, Reuters reported that India saw the greatest number of pollution-related early deaths in 2015. "People in poorer countries - like construction workers in New Delhi - are more exposed to air pollution and less able to protect themselves from exposure, as they walk, bike or ride the bus to workplaces that may also be polluted," Karti Sandilya, one of the authors of the commission's report, told the news agency.  

(Read the full study by The Lancet here)

According to The Lancet's study, diseases caused by pollution were responsible for an estimated 9 million premature deaths, 16 per cent of all deaths worldwide, in 2015. This number was three times more than deaths from AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria combined and 15 times more than from all wars and other forms of violence.

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