LAHORE:Heavy rain accompanied with thunderstorm hit the city at night, suspending power supply at various localities, uprooting several treesand slowing down the traffic.
Following the rain, WasaMD and other officers concerned came out in the field to monitor the situation and drainage of stagnant rainwater. The rain continued till late at night.Earlier in the day, hot, dry but partly cloudy weather was witnessed here on Monday while Met office predicted similar weather conditions for the next 24 hours.
Though scattered rain with thunderstorm occurred at different areas in early hours, the overall day was hot and dry. The average AQI of the city was 84, which fell in the category of moderate while the PM2.5 concentration was 4.4 times the World Health Organisation annual PM2.5 guideline value. Met officials said that a shallow westerly trough was still approaching upper/eastern parts of the country and was likely to affect during the next 12 to 18 hours. Continental air was prevailing over most parts of the country during the week. They predicted that mainly hot and dry weather was expected in most parts of the country while very hot in southern regions. However, rain-windstorm/thunderstorm was likely at isolated places in Gilgit-Baltistan.
Rainfall was recorded at different cities across the country. Monday’s maximum temperature was recorded at Jacobabad and Shaheed Benazirabad where mercury reached 46°C, while in Lahore, it was 34°C. Meanwhile, Senior Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb claimed that Lahore's air quality improved because of multi-sectoral initiatives of Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz and on Monday Lahore ranked 9th in the global ranking. The Punjab govt's major initiative to eliminate smog, 26,330 schools included in the Green School Certification Programme, she said, adding more than 7.6m students and teachers were part of the environmental campaign, strengthening the vision of Green Punjab and practical environmental measures were underway in schools under the leadership of IPA and Climate Change.
She said under the CM's Replacement of Two, Three Wheelers Policy, two and three-wheeled vehicles were being converted into electric vehicles in a phased manner. For a significant reduction in air pollution, govt transport will be converted to EVs, motorcycles will be converted in the first phase and farmers in the agricultural sector will be encouraged not to burn crop residues.
