Emissions from vehicles and factories are the leading pollutants in Ho Chi Minh City, city officials said after checking air samples at major observation stations.

“Dirt produced by emissions has become the leading cause of severe pollution in the city,” the department said.

Officials from the department said the five million vehicles driving through the city each day were causing increasingly dense and frequent traffic jams.

They noted that the An Suong crossroads in District 12 was a pollution and traffic-jam hotspot where air samples taken throughout the day failed all health requirements, sometimes even registering five times more toxins than permitted.

Lead and the reddish-brown toxic gas nitrogen dioxide (NO2) were also measured in the city’s air at amounts breaching safety standards.

The officials said HCMC was home to too many factories located in the center of the city or near residential areas. They also said five million vehicles were more than the city could stand.

Half of the smoke-emitting factories in the city didn’t have smoke treatment systems, according to the department.

The officials said they would cooperate with concerned agencies to punish factories without smoke treatment plants and suspend those severely polluting the air.

They would also work with the municipal Market Management Bureau to stop gasoline traders from adding lead to make gas heavier. Additionally, the department said it aimed to work with traffic police to help check vehicles’ emission rates.

Source: VNA