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Monday, February 17, 2025

Air quality in Port of Spain bad for sensitive groups today

by

1015 days ago
20220509
AQI update courtesy Environmental Management Authority (EMA).

AQI update courtesy Environmental Management Authority (EMA).

The air qual­i­ty mon­i­tor­ing sta­tions of the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) have record­ed an Air Qual­i­ty In­dex (AQI) of 126 for Port of Spain—which is des­ig­nat­ed SEN­SI­TIVE GROUPS.  The read­ing was tak­en at 10 am to­day.

The EMA’s AQI alert sys­tem warns for peo­ple in the Port of Spain area, there is in­creas­ing like­li­hood of res­pi­ra­to­ry symp­toms in sen­si­tive groups in­clud­ing old­er adults, chil­dren, and peo­ple with res­pi­ra­to­ry ail­ments and al­ler­gies.  It al­so notes the re­al pos­si­bil­i­ty of ag­gra­va­tion of heart or lung dis­ease and pre­ma­ture mor­tal­i­ty in peo­ple with heart or lung dis­ease.

As such, peo­ple with heart or lung dis­ease, old­er adults, chil­dren, and peo­ple with res­pi­ra­to­ry ail­ments and al­ler­gies are be­ing ad­vised to re­duce pro­longed or heavy ex­er­tion.

At 10 am to­day, the AQI mon­i­tor­ing sta­tion at San Fer­nan­do reg­is­tered an AQI of 56, des­ig­na­tion MOD­ER­ATE.  At these lev­els, res­pi­ra­to­ry symp­toms are pos­si­ble in un­usu­al­ly sen­si­tive in­di­vid­u­als.  In ad­di­tion, there could be pos­si­ble ag­gra­va­tion of heart or lung dis­ease in peo­ple with car­diopul­monary dis­ease and old­er adults.  Un­usu­al­ly sen­si­tive peo­ple should con­sid­er re­duc­ing pro­longed or heavy ex­er­tion.

In the past, the Min­istry of Health has ad­vised per­sons who al­ready have lung con­di­tions, like asth­ma, to stay in­doors, when pos­si­ble, and have their res­cue in­haler with them at all times.  It is ad­vice which should be heed­ed by such per­sons in the Port of Spain and San Fer­nan­do ar­eas, to­day.

Mean­while, the AQI record­ed at 10 am for the Point Lisas area was 20, des­ig­na­tion GOOD.  Thus, peo­ple can safe­ly en­joy their out­door ac­tiv­i­ties.

Ac­cord­ing to the lat­est fore­cast from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice, to­day will see gen­er­al­ly hot and sun­ny con­di­tions in­ter­spersed with part­ly cloudy pe­ri­ods and a few show­ery in­ter­vals.  There is a low chance for the af­ter­noon heavy show­er or thun­der­storm over west­ern dis­tricts of Trinidad.

In its Dry Sea­son out­look for this year, the Met Ser­vice warned that an in­crease in sur­face dry­ness as the sea­son pro­gress­es will in­crease the po­ten­tial for bush/grass/for­est and land­fill fires, which can de­te­ri­o­rate the air qual­i­ty and stress per­sons with sen­si­tive res­pi­ra­to­ry con­di­tions.

_____

About the Air Qual­i­ty In­dex (AQI)

The Air Qual­i­ty In­dex is a num­ber used by gov­ern­ment agen­cies to com­mu­ni­cate to the pub­lic how pol­lut­ed the air cur­rent­ly is or how pol­lut­ed it is fore­cast to be­come. As the AQI in­creas­es, an in­creas­ing­ly large per­cent­age of the pop­u­la­tion is like­ly to ex­pe­ri­ence in­creas­ing­ly se­vere ad­verse health ef­fects.

EnvironmentWeatherTrinidadEMAAir Quality


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