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Nobody likes pollution in their city,
and to some degree, everyone complains about it.
Smog, trash, all of the above suck.
But if you think your city has issues,
those are extremely minor problems
compared to the cities on this list.
Here are the 10 most polluted cities on Earth.
(Indian music)
Number 10 is Onitsha, Nigeria.
Onitsha is a port city in Nigeria
with over one million citizens.
In 2016, the city had the world's highest recording
of pollutant particles called PM10,
which is particulate matter
that is 10 microns per measurement.
Being the biggest port on the Niger River,
Onitsha is often plagued by clouds of diesel smoke
from transport ships that pollute the air,
along with emissions from old cars,
which are abundant in the city,
and heaps of trash being burned outdoors.
But hey, if the air doesn't convince you
to be wary of this place, the water contamination might.
Tests of the city's water found pollution from,
you might wanna make sure you're sitting down for this,
garbage dumps, industrial waste, sewage,
hospital waste, metal industry wastes, and fuel spills.
Oh, gimme some of that good good yum yum (slurping).
The water has gained unhealthy levels
of arsenic, mercury, and lead,
as well as lots of other metals.
Number nine is Gwalior, India.
(Indian music)
Gwalior is a major city in India,
with a population of over 1.9 million.
According to the World Health Organization,
it's the most polluted city in the country.
The air quality in the city contains 176 micrograms
of ultra-fine PM2.5 particles per cubic meter,
which is horrible when you consider
the WHO's recommended value is 10 micrograms.
The pollution mostly comes from widespread use
of outdated diesel-fueled motor vehicles,
as well as the use of coal for heating in large buildings
and fueling their power plants.
Other environmental factors,
like roads in disrepair and hotter temperatures,
create dust in the air,
while a lack of vegetation leads
to less clean air being recycled back.
The terrible air quality has contributed
to the rise in lung problems,
like asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Not exactly a place you wanna go vacation at.
Number eight is Mailuu-suu, Kyrgyzstan.
(Indian music)
Mailuu-suu, Kyrgyzstan was the site
of a uranium plant which operated from 1946 until 1968,
processing 10,000 metric tons of uranium for atomic bombs.
But while it wasn't all used for world ending explosives,
that radioactive material is still
stored in unstable locations,
which are threatened by earthquakes and landslides.
These sites have already caused contamination disasters.
In April of 2005, a landslide introduced
300,000 cubic meters of the mining waste into their river.
If the rest of the material falls into rivers,
or is swallowed by landslides,
it could devastate the lush and populous areas around it.
The cancer rates in Meiluu-Suu
are double that of the rest of the country,
and while Kyrgyzstan has made attempts to secure the waste,
the danger of more environmental catastrophe still persists.
Number seven is La Oroya, Peru.
(Indian music)
La Oroya is a city of 24,000 people,
with a large mining and processing industry
that causes toxic chemicals to enter the air,
vegetation to wither and die,
and sickness in the population.
An astonishing 99% of children living there
have high levels of lead in their blood,
and deaths linked to toxic gases and lung diseases
are a regular issue for the workers and residents.
A large amount of this pollution
comes from an American-owned smelting plant
near the population center that
releases chemicals into the air.
Extremely high sulfur dioxide content in the air
from these plants causes acid rain,
which has killed most of the local plant life.
Toxic lead waste emitted from
the industrial processing plants
will stay in the city's soil for hundreds of years,
meaning revitalization will be nearly impossible
for this Peruvian wasteland.
This place makes the smog in LA
feel like a fresh ocean breeze.
Number six is Xingtai, China.
(Indian music)
Xingtai is the city with the worst air pollution in China.
Thick smog often blankets the area,
and the air tastes faintly of petrol, even on a clear day.
Xingtai is home to over 7,100,000 people
and is a heavily industrialized city,
producing an astounding
20 million metric tons of coal each year,
and housing the region's biggest coal-fueled power plant.
Yeah, but the problems don't end there,
as several plants have been under criminal investigation
for leaking toxic waste and harmful chemicals
into their water and soil.
Some days, the city's residents
are forced to actually stay indoors,
cranking air purifiers and
monitoring their air quality by phone app.
Children actually have to wear masks at school,
and are discouraged from outdoor activities
in an effort to avoid contracting tuberculosis.
Number five is Chernobyl, Ukraine.
(Indian music)
On April 26th, 1986, Chernobyl became the site
of the worst nuclear disaster ever
when a nuclear power plant experienced a meltdown
and irradiated more than 2,590 square kilometers.
Despite the highly radioactive environment,
around 700 people still live in
and around the outskirts of the inclusion zone,
which was evacuated by the government
to avoid radiation-related deaths.
Workers and researchers still spend their days
decommissioning the plant,
and studying the effects of the fallout.
Citizens in the area still experience
the effect from Chernobyl's radioactivity,
with cancer rates skyrocketing and birth defects,
skin damage, and respiratory issues being commonplace.
Chernobyl won't be safe for another 20,000 years,
but the natives, administrative workers,
and mutated wildlife still call it home.
Number four is Linfen, China.
(Indian music)
Linfen has undergone decades of air pollution
from the booming coal industry in the area.
The sky there is commonly obscured by gray, ashy smog,
that is largely created by
the numerous coal mining operations
and coal burning power plants.
The coal ash pollution is so bad
that hanging your laundry out to dry
can cause it to literally turn black.
A member of Linfen's 4,300,000 person population
has a life expectancy of 10 years younger
than China's national average, which is 76.
In terms of geology,
Linfen is in a bad spot to deal with its situation,
lying in a basin surrounded by mountains,
where airflow is stifled, resulting in
the toxic air pollution not disappearing naturally.
If China wants blue skies across their countryside,
they'll have to lay off the coal.
Number three is Zabol, Iran.
(Indian music)
Zabol is home to over 130,600 people,
all of whom happen to live in
one of the most polluted cities in the whole world.
Zabol's pollution problem may not be
what you expect, though.
In 2016, the World Health Organization
ranked Zabol as the most polluted city in the world,
based on a measurement of fine particles in the air.
The city's air pollution
is caused by their annual Wind of 120 Days,
a massive dust storm caused by strong winds that start
in late May and continue all he way until late September.
Think about that.
That's a dust storm that lasts an entire four months.
If I have a little bit of dust in my bedroom,
I'm like (sneezing and wheezes).
Every year, the storm gets worse
because of the disappearance of the nearby wetland,
which served to cool down the area
but now adds more dust to the storm.
Because of the harsh pollution,
more than 500 residents are
diagnosed with tuberculosis every year.
Number two is Delhi, India.
(Indian music)
In 2014, the World Health Organization
named India's capital city, Delhi,
the most polluted city in the world.
This city's 11 million inhabitants
are effected by the dense smog of air pollutants
so badly that 10,500 of them die every year from it,
while countless others contract lung cancer and asthma.
Health experts say that breathing the air in Delhi
is like smoking 40 cigarettes a day.
During particularly bad smog alerts,
the government will shut down construction projects,
power plants, and schools for a matter of days,
in order to curb some of the pollutant's effects.
Those pollutants come from
the high concentration of vehicles in this city,
along with emissions from industrial sectors,
construction, and crop burning smoke.
There's literally no end in sight, or way to tell,
when Delhi's air will become safe to breathe again.
And number one is Dzerzhinsk, Russia.
(Indian music)
Dzerzhinsk is a city with over 240,000 people,
that has been named by the Guinness Book of World Records
as the most chemically polluted city on Earth.
The chemical pollution can be attributed
to the manufacturing of chemical weapons
during the Cold War.
Things like sarin, VX, and mustard gas
were produced in the city,
and other chemicals, like acetone and methylamine,
are still in production.
Between 1930 and 1998, over 272,000 metric tons
of dangerous toxins and chemicals
were illegally dumped in the city,
contaminating the water and soil
with enough toxins to send the population death rate
260% higher than the birth rate in 2003.
To put it into perspective,
the average male citizen of Dzerzhinsk
has a life expectancy of just 42 years, and women, 47.
So wherever you live, if it's not on this list,
be thankful.
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