Lahore was ranked the world’s most polluted major city on Monday as its Air Quality Index (AQI) reached 590, according to IQAir, with a separate hourly reading on the platform climbing to 647 — deep in the hazardous category.

The IQAir live global ranking for 9am to 10am on 9 November placed Lahore at the top, followed by Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia with an AQI of 177, Delhi with 174, Kolkata with 173 and Sarajevo with 170 — leaving Lahore’s pollution level more than three times that of the second-ranked city. Other parts of Punjab were also in the hazardous category, with Raiwind at 688, Multan at 655 and Faisalabad at 600.

The Punjab government has pointed to smoke from Diwali fireworks in neighbouring Indian Punjab, crop-residue burning and easterly winds as the cause, and had warned that smoke from the fireworks could reach Lahore within five to 13 hours. But satellite data cited in the coverage complicates that explanation: an analysis by Hamari Hawa using NASA’s VIIRS data recorded 13,241 fire detections in Pakistani Punjab, compared with 3,158 in Indian Punjab, between 1 and 29 October 2026. The provincial Environment Protection Agency reported 679 agricultural fire incidents across the province, of which 650 had been extinguished, and Lahore’s nighttime PM2.5 concentration had already reached 202 micrograms per cubic metre before Diwali.

Punjab Senior Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb said later in the day that Lahore’s AQI reading had dropped to 208, and IQAir showed 196 by 7pm, still categorised as unhealthy. The provincial government had forecast that pollution would remain high on 9 and 10 November, with a slight improvement expected from 11 November, and its Environment Protection Department was due to release comparative findings on 10 November on how much each source contributed. A Pakistan Air Quality Initiative report cited in the coverage estimates that air pollution reduces life expectancy in Pakistan by 3.9 years and contributes to around 128,000 premature deaths a year.

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