Tehran chokes and blames severe pollution on US sanctions

guardian.co.uk

Iran's capital shrouded in 'poisonous' smog caused by petrol produced locally following US import ban

Residents of Tehran are blaming US sanctions for unprecedented levels of air pollution that have repeatedly forced the closure of universities and schools in the Iranian capital in the past month.

Tehran, surrounded by mountains and with millions of cars on its congested streets, has long been regarded as one of the world's most polluted cities, but the heavy smog that has recently shrouded its streets has been described as the worst in its history.

Earlier this week, an advisor to Tehran's mayor said the city's residents were breathing "poison" and said the government had asked environmental officials not to discuss the air pollution in public. Muhammad Hadi Heydarzadeh told an Iranian news agency that the situation in the city was "critical".

"What people in Tehran inhaled in the past few weeks was just poison," he said.

The smog is said to be the result of a locally produced form of petrol that the government introduced after the imposition in July of US sanctions preventing foreign firms from selling petrol to Iran.

At the time, president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad described the sanctions as "futile" and told journalists in Tehran that "within a week we will reach the phase of self-sufficiency in producing petrol".

Iran is the world's fourth-largest producer of crude oil but the second-largest importer of petrol (after the US) because it lacks refineries.

Locally refined petrol produces high levels of pollution, said Hosseinali Shahriari, the head of the Iranian parliamentary committee for healthcare, who said Iranian petrol contains 10 times the level of contaminants of imported fuel.

In its attempt to deal with the smog crisis, the Iranian government has launched small planes to seed clouds and create rainshowers, and closed government offices, universities and schools for at least six days in the past three weeks. Sport competitions, some exhibitions and official ceremonies have also been postponed.

The closure of universities was initially seen as a political move to prevent protests on Iran's national student day on Tuesday, but the theory was soon dropped as more and more Tehranis reported headaches difficulty in breathing. Hospitals reported 40% increase in patients with breathing difficulties.

Behrooz Mohammadi, a 35-year-old computer engineer, told the Guardian that the haze in Tehran was so bad this week that even the Milad Tower, the sixth tallest in the world, was not visible from close by.

He said: "People in Tehran are accustomed to the polluted air but these weeks' pollution were even unprecedented [by] our standards. I could hardly breathe and I got severe headaches, and my eyes were itching so badly that tears were coming out of them as if I was crying."

The government has strongly denounced the US-backed sanctions, but opposition activists have also opposed the measures, arguing that they hurt citizens more than the government.

Morteza Farahmand, 24, a student in Tehran said: "It's the ordinary people who are affected by the sanctions, not the government. Look at how many ordinary passengers were killed over the recent years in our flight accidents due to the sanctions against selling airplane maintenance or repair products to Iran, and now you can clearly see it in the pollution caused by Iranian petrol."

Tehran, notorious for its slow traffic, has little wind due to its location in the foothills of the Alborz mountain range. According to Fathollah Emami, the director of Tehran's Project to Reduce Pollution, 27 Tehranis die each day from pollution-related diseases.