好英语网在印度，当空气变成毒药
Every winter, farmers in northern India burn crops to make room for a new harvest. The fumes drift toward New Delhi and its suburbs, mixing with construction dust, vehicle emissions and smoke from fireworks displays during Diwali, the Hindu festival of light. A toxic cloud can linger for weeks, causing coughs, headaches and even highway pileups.
新德里——上周末至本周一，印度首都新德里的空气污染攀升至极度有害的程度，街道被笼罩在浑浊的雾霾之下，航班延误，政客们就谁是罪魁祸首展开争论。
This year, the pollution has become so dire that the Indian government declared a public health emergency on Friday, shutting all primary schools for days and halting construction projects. NASA satellite imagery showed large swathes of India’s northern plains smothered by haze.
每年冬天，印度北部的农民都会燃烧农作物，为新的庄稼腾出空间。烟雾飘向新德里及其郊区，与建筑灰尘、汽车排放物，以及在排灯节(Diwali)期间燃放的烟火产生的烟尘混合在一起。有毒的尘雾可能会持续数周，引发居民咳嗽、头疼，甚至引发高速公路的连环相撞事故。
周日，新德里，印度教节日日神节的集会笼罩在一片雾霾中。
In many areas over the weekend, levels of deadly particulate matter reached around 60 times the global safety threshold, or the equivalent of smoking more than two packs of cigarettes a day. People huddled around air purifiers, sealed door cracks with towels and prayed for rain.
今年，污染情况变得尤其严重，以至于印度政府于周五宣布公共卫生紧急状态，所有小学被关闭数日，建设项目被暂停。美国国家航空航天局(NASA)的卫星图像显示，印度北部大片平原被雾霾笼罩。
To try to curtail the pollution, officials in New Delhi on Monday started restricting the use of private vehicles on alternating days, allowing only cars with odd-number license plates to drive on odd dates and cars with even-numbered plates on even-numbered dates.
周末在许多地区，致命颗粒物的水平达到了全球安全限值的60倍左右，相当于每天吸烟超过两包。人们聚在空气净化器附近，用毛巾封堵门缝，并祈祷雨水到来。
Still, the air quality index remained in the 400 range in much of the city on Monday, a level considered very poor.
为了改善空气质量，周一，新德里的官员开始对私家车实行单双日车牌限号。尽管如此，周一大部分城市的空气质量指数仍停留在被认为是“非常差”的400左右。