Lahore:
Artificial rain was used for the first time in Pakistan on Saturday in a bid to combat dangerous levels of smog in the megacity of Lahore, the provincial government said.
In the first experiment of its kind in the South Asian country, planes equipped with cloud seeding equipment flew over ten areas of the city, often ranked as among the worst places in the world for air pollution.
The “gift” was provided by the United Arab Emirates, said Punjab's interim Prime Minister Mohsin Naqvi.
“Teams from the UAE arrived here about ten to twelve days ago, along with two aircraft. They used 48 torches to cause the rain,” he told media.
He said the team would know on Saturday evening what effect the “artificial rain” had.
The UAE is increasingly using cloud seeding, also called artificial rain or blueskying, to create rain across the country's arid expanses.
The weather change involves the release of regular salt – or a mixture of different salts – in clouds.
The crystals stimulate the formation of condensation in the form of rain.
It has been deployed in dozens of countries, including the United States, China and India.
Even very modest rainfall is effective in reducing pollution, experts say.
Pakistan's air pollution has worsened in recent years as a mixture of low-grade diesel fumes, smoke from burning seasonal crops and colder winter temperatures coalesce into stagnant clouds of smog.
Lahore suffers the most from toxic smog, which chokes the lungs of over eleven million residents of Lahore during the winter season.
Levels of PM2.5 pollutants – cancer-causing microparticles that enter the bloodstream through the lungs – were measured as dangerous at more than 66 times the World Health Organization danger limits in Lahore on Saturday.
Breathing the toxic air has catastrophic health consequences.
According to the WHO, long-term exposure can lead to stroke, heart disease, lung cancer and respiratory diseases.
Successive governments have used various methods to reduce air pollution in Lahore, including spraying water on the roads and closing schools, factories and markets on weekends, with little or no success.
When asked about a long-term strategy to combat smog, the Prime Minister said the government needs studies to formulate a plan.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)