earthPoems
Environment, British Columbia and the PunjabArchive for October 30, 2008
300 steel mills burning tyres in Lahore
By Abdul Manan
LAHORE: Around 300 steel mills in the city are increasingly burning used tyres as fuel, releasing toxic smoke into the environment, it was learnt on Wednesday.
The mills have resorted to using tyres as fuel following the shortage of natural gas.
Too high:
There are about 300 steel mills in Northern Lahore and their gas emissions are at level four on the Ringelmann scale, whereas the international standard is level one. Emissions at level six blacken the surrounding environment.
According to local government statistics, these factories are situated in Shalimar and Wagha towns, home to around two million people. “These factories have been using natural gas and discarded tyres. However, they have increased the burning of tyres following an increase in gas outages,” a City District Government Lahore (CDGL) official said.
He said factories’ emissions were three times higher than the National Environmental Quality Standards (NEQS) 2000. There is no arrangement in Pakistan for measuring overall environment pollution, known as the Air Ambient Quality Standard. According to official sources, the Pakistan Environment Protection Act, 1997, is silent on the burning of used tyres. The Local Government Ordinance, 2001, and the five sections concerning public nuisance of the Pakistan Penal Code can be used to punish those burning used tyres. The CDGL official said that no civic agency had taken any interest in the issue, adding that the CDGL Environment Department had only seven inspectors which were insufficient to deal with the environmental pollution. He said the smoke from these factories contained excessive carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, which were injurious to health.
The inhalation of the two gases causes listlessness, depression, dementia, emotional disturbances, headaches, vertigo, and flu-like effects, whereas excessive exposure can lead to significant toxicity of the central nervous system and heart, a medical expert said. An Environment Protection Agency (EPA) spokesman said the agency would ask the CDGL Environment Department to accelerate its drive against steel mills. He said these factories, if found burning tyres, would be sealed under the Local Government Ordinance.
South Asia’s deadly Himalayan fault
Daily Times Monitor
LAHORE: Experts have long been warning of the danger of serious earthquakes in South Asia, and say more are likely.
According to BBC science correspondent Roland Pease, many earthquakes have struck along the southern flanks of the Himalayas over the past centuries – but not enough to account for all the steady, northward movement of India into Asia.
An earthquake in Pakistan is the result of India’s long-term, gradual, geological movement north into Asia at a speed of five centimetres a year – a millimetre per week.
Earthquakes happen when energy stored up along geological faults, like the Himalayan thrust, is suddenly released. The trouble is, the more time passes without seismic release, the more energy accumulates, making a giant earthquake more likely.
The October 2005 earthquake fitted in with the scientists’ expectations but, at 7.6 on the Richter scale, was relatively weak compared to what they feared.
Nevertheless, it was likely to have been very destructive, as the 2001 earthquake in the western Indian state of Gujarat was of a similar strength and killed 14,000 people.
But earthquakes ten times more powerful – capable of killing as many as a million people on the Ganges plain – must be expected, the experts warn.
What scientists cannot say is when the next one will strike, which makes it far more difficult for them to convey their warning.
