Approaching Okpoko market through thick smog on the back of an okada (motorcycle taxi), the natural reaction is to cover your nose to protect yourself from the dust storm – but the effort is futile.

When a lorry zooms past, kicking up yet another red cloud of dirt, a trader turns the head of a sleeping toddler away from the road, a protective act that is as poignant as it is pointless.

This is a typical day in the southern Nigerian port city of Onitsha – which last year gained notoriety when it was ranked the worst city in the world for the staggering levels of PM10 particulate matter in its air.

Onitsha’s mean annual concentration was recorded at 594 micrograms per cubic metre by the World Health Organization – massively exceeding the WHO’s annual guideline limit for PM10s of 20μg/m3.

PM10 refers to coarse dust particles between 10 and 2.5 micrometres in diameter, while PM2.5s are even finer and more dangerous when inhaled, settling deep in a person’s lungs. Sources of both include dust storms, gases emitted by vehicles, all types of combustion, and industrial activities such as cement manufacturing, construction, mining and smelting. Onitsha scores highly on most of the above – as do other rapidly growing Nigerian cities such as Kaduna, Aba and Umuahia, all of which also featured in the WHO’s 20 worst offenders for PM10s.

In Onitsha’s very busy Okpoko market, my air quality monitor registers 140 for PM10s and 70 for PM2.5s – all way over recommended healthy levels, but still nothing compared to the readings triggered in other parts of this densely populated commercial and industrial hub.

The entire vicinity of the market is perpetually dusty, as wood-sellers saw lumber into different shapes and sizes. The air here is made worse by all the fine sand particles that fly off the back of trucks as they visit one of the many dredging companies on the bank of the River Niger, just behind the wood market.


https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/feb/13/polluted-onitsha-nigeria-perpetual-dust-city-world-worst-air

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