JakartaPost-June 22
A s Jakarta counts its days as the national capital, it is gearing up to celebrate its 497th anniversary on Saturday as though it will forever be the center of the country’s marvels, never mind problems, with residents expecting some improvements to the city’s perennial issues, from choking air pollution to infamous traffic. This year’s anniversary celebrations are expected to be another gloomy one, as Jakarta has been shrouded by thin, gray smog for the past week, ranking it among the world’s most polluted cities on the list of Swiss air quality technology company IQAir. For days, Jakarta has averaged an “unhealthy” level of 158 on the Air Quality Index (AQI), with PM2.5 fine particulate matter reaching a concentration 13 times higher than the safe threshold under the global air quality guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO). The bad air quality has persisted since last year, with authorities scrambling to come up with various measures to clean the city’s air, from mandating vehicle emission tests to producing more rain through cloud seeding. Now it’s 2024 and nothing has really changed for Jakartans, such as Siti Kuswatun and her 4-year-old son, who have been frequently ill with respiratory infections over the past 12 months due to the poor quality of the city’s air. “We often experience coughing and flu-like symptoms that immediately disappear when we travel out of the city,” the 29-year-old homemaker from South Jakarta said. The Jakarta Health Agency estimated that severe air pollution had contributed to 100,000 cases of acute respiratory infections each month in 2023. Another study published last year pointed to air pollution as the cause of more than 10,000 deaths and 5,000 hospitalizations for heart and lung-related illnesses in Jakarta per annum, as well as more than 7,000 cases of adverse health effects in children, from stunting to newborn deaths. Read more at: https://www.thejakartapost.com/indonesia/2024/06/22/jakarta-celebrates-another-year-as-capital-city.html.
