Noida: A thick blanket of smog engulfed the region for most of Friday, leaving highrises barely visible beyond 500 metres. All three NCR cities slipped to hazardous levels, with at least 14 monitoring stations of the total 21 recording ‘very poor’ air quality index and one — Sector 62 in Noida — slipping to ‘severe-plus’ category.The office hub, which oversees commercial and residential sectors abutting the Delhi-Meerut Expressway, has seen the worst air quality this season, recording AQI above 400 (severe) when the city’s average stayed below 300 (poor). On Friday, AQI was the season’s worst at 468.On Friday, Noida’s air quality was recorded at 313 (very poor), almost unchanged from Thursday’s 311. Two stations, sectors 39 and 116, recorded ‘very poor’ air quality at 315 and 311, respectively.Greater Noida saw a sharp deterioration over the past 24 hours, with AQI slipping to 348 (very poor) from 288 (poor) recorded a day ago. On Wednesday, Greater Noida’s AQI was 257. A newly set-up monitoring station at Gaur Yamuna City is yet to capture data. All the other five stations recorded air quality in the ‘poor’ category.Ghaziabad’s AQI slipped from 338 to 368 in a day. Eight of nine monitoring stations recorded ‘very poor’ air quality, with three of them barely missing the ‘severe’ category by a few notches. Indirapuram, which had recorded an AQI of 144 on Tuesday, remained at its worst with an AQI of 399, followed by Dasna Dehat and New Tehsil Loni, both at an AQI of 397. Vasundhara, Wave City and Loni also remained closer to the severe category with AQIs of 391, 389 and 383, respectively. The only monitoring station to remain in the range of 200-300 was Govindpuram with an AQI of 255, which was the same as that of Thursday.According to IMD, north-westerly winds are likely to remain active on Saturday, indicating that there would hardly be any relief from the pollution. Wind speed is likely to pick up on Sunday.
