Cairo named world’s second most-polluted megacity

Having the second-highest air pollution level in the world is not quite the ranking we were hoping to top: Cairo has the second-highest level of air pollution among the world’s megacities, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a report put out last week. Cairo’s air pollution levels between 2010 and 2015 were second only to New Delhi, and registered significantly higher concentrations of particulate matter than Beijing and Mexico City. Air pollution levels remain “dangerously high” in many parts of the world, and cause around 7 mn deaths per annum “from exposure to fine particles in polluted air that penetrate deep into the lungs and cardiovascular system,” the WHO warned.