In Bangkok, schools are closed due to air pollution

(RENEWAL) BANGKOK — Air pollution forced nearly 200 schools in Bangkok to close on Thursday, local authorities said, as officials urged people to work from home and restricted heavy vehicles in the Thai capital.

Seasonal air pollution has long plagued this Southeast Asian country, like many others in the region, as colder, stagnant winter air combines with stubble-burning smoke and car fumes.

By Thursday morning, Bangkok was the sixth most polluted major city in the world, according to IQAir.

Levels of PM2.5 pollutants — cancer-causing microparticles small enough to enter the bloodstream through the lungs — reached 122 micrograms per cubic meter.

The World Health Organization recommends that the average 24-hour exposure should not exceed 15 on most days of the year.

Earlier this week, Bangkok authorities said schools in areas with elevated PM2.5 levels may be closed.

And by Thursday morning, 194 of the 437 schools under the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) had closed their doors, affecting thousands of students.

Facilities range from kindergartens to high schools, and closures last anywhere from a day to a week.

Dozens of other schools in the capital are not under the BMA and figures were not available.

The figure is the highest number of school closures since 2020, when all BMA-run schools closed due to air pollution.

Vulnerable children

Children are particularly vulnerable to the effects of air pollution, but campaigners warn that the closures disproportionately affect the most vulnerable pupils.

“Closing schools should be a last resort,” said Severine Leonardi, deputy representative of the United Nations Children’s Fund in Thailand.

“There really needs to be a wake-up call about the need to invest in the education system and protect children,” she told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Earlier this week, authorities encouraged people to work from home, but the scheme is voluntary and has only registered 100,000 participants in the city of 10 million.

Officials also restricted the access of six-wheeled trucks to some areas of the capital until late Friday.

The government has announced incentives to end stubble burning and is even testing a new method of combating air pollution by spraying cold water or dry ice into the air above the smog.

But the measures have so far had little impact, and opposition politicians have accused Thai Prime Minister Petongtarn Shinawatra, who is currently in the eastern Swiss city of Davos for the World Economic Forum, of not taking the problem seriously.

“While the prime minister is breathing fresh air in Switzerland trying to attract more investment to Thailand… millions of Thais are breathing polluted air into their lungs,” Nattaphong Ruengpanyavut, the leader of the People’s Party, said in a Facebook post.

Clean air activists are pushing for legislation that could be passed later this year.

“You really need comprehensive legislation for all the different aspects of the crisis,” said Guillaume Rushu, executive director of Save the Children Thailand.

“It’s difficult, but I think with the Clean Air Act we’re getting there,” he told AFP.