NEW DELHI: Teenage student Aniksha is relieved to be back in class in India’s capital — even if the choking smog that prompted her school to close last month has yet to dissipate.
New Delhi and the surrounding metropolitan area is home to more than 30 million people and is blanketed by a thick and acrid haze each winter.
The public health crisis has grown steadily worse over the years and weeks-long school closures across the capital, aimed at shielding vulnerable children from the harmful skies, are now an annual occurrence.
But for the students like Aniksha it is a dreary ritual that disrupts their learning for weeks and keeps them stuck at home, isolated from friends.
“It’s boring to stay at home,” Aniksha, who uses only one name, told AFP on the grounds of her government school in the capital’s west.
“I’m happy that class is back,” the 13-year-old added. “You can do more in school. You can interact with the teachers and also get their help.”
Nearly two million students across Delhi were out of schools for more than two weeks last month as the skies overhead turned a sickly yellow-grey.
At the peak of the smog, levels of PM2.5 — dangerous cancer-causing microparticles that enter the bloodstream through the lungs — surged more than 60 times the World Health Organization’s recommended daily maximum.
Delhi’s government gave schools the option to reopen last week, and many have resumed in-person classes in the days since.
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