People are coughing, have taken out their masks to protect themselves, and are hanging wet cloths on the windows. As for the blue sky, it disappears in favor of a whitish, grayish veil. This is what is happening in many South American cities invaded by smoke from fires. Brazil is particularly affected: there were more than 60,000 fires in the month of September alone, according to INPE, the Brazilian Institute for Space Research.
Brasilia, the country’s capital, was 80% covered in a cloud of toxic smoke last week, according to INPE. In the capital’s largest hospital, consultations for respiratory problems (asthma attacks, pneumonia and sinusitis) have increased 20-fold.
In São Paulo, in the southeast of the country, the largest city in Latin America, the level of fine particles (those which penetrate deep into the respiratory tract) was 14 times higher than the limit recommended by the World Health Organization. Health! In Rio de Janeiro, it was five times more!
An air that is unbreathable in neighboring states: Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, – and even Argentina located further south. States affected either by their own fires or by smoke coming from Brazil. In a large part of these countries, air quality is considered to range from “bad” to “very bad for health”, according to IQAir, a global air quality monitoring company.
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