‘Where can you hide from pollution?’: cancer rises 30% in Beirut as diesel generators poison city

(The Guardian, 22 Apr 2024) ‘Where can you hide from pollution?’: cancer rises 30% in Beirut as diesel generators poison city Lebanon’s economy and electricity system are broken and much power is now generated locally, with devastating effects on air quality and health.

Smog hangs over Beirut most days, a brownish cloud that darkens the city’s skyline of minarets and concrete towers. An estimated 8,000 diesel generators have been powering Lebanese cities since the nation’s economic collapse in 2019. The generators can be heard, smelled and seen on the streets, but their worst impact is on the air the city’s inhabitants are forced to breathe.

New research, to be published by scientists at American University of Beirut (AUB), has found that the Lebanese capital’s over-reliance on the diesel generators in the past five years has directly doubled the risk of developing cancer. Rates of positive diagnosis, oncologists say, are shooting up.

“The results are alarming,” says Najat Saliba, an atmospheric chemist who led the study. In the area of Makassed, one of the more densely populated parts of Beirut tested, levels of pollution from fine particulates – that is, less than 2.5 micrometres in diameter (PM2.5) – peaked at 60 micrograms a cubic metre, four times the 15 mcg/m³ level the World Health Organization sayspeople should be not exposed to for more than 3-4 days a year.

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The Guardian, 22 Apr 2024: ‘Where can you hide from pollution?’: cancer rises 30% in Beirut as diesel generators poison city