Cao Tung Son, Director of the Center of Environmental Monitoring under the conference Wednesday that traffic was responsible for the most part of the pollution considering the large numb
Trang 1HCMC choked by exhaust fumes,
factory smoke and construction
dust
By Huu Nguyen October 10, 2019 | 12:08 pm GMT+7
Thick haze looms over Saigon Bridge in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, October 3, 2019 Photo
by VnExpress/Thanh Nguyen
Exhaust from 10 million vehicles, smoke from 1,000 large factories and dust
from numerous construction sites are worsening HCMC air pollution,
authorities admit
Cao Tung Son, Director of the Center of Environmental Monitoring under the
conference Wednesday that traffic was responsible for the most part of the
pollution considering the large number of vehicles on the city’s roads
There are 37 traffic jam hotspots in the city that generate a huge amount of
emissions, he said
Data from 19 traffic locations show that more than 50 percent of the pollutants
Trang 2are regularly recorded at Cat Lai in District 2, Huynh Tan Phat - Nguyen Van
Linh intersection in District 7 and intersections connecting the city to its
western and eastern neighbors
Among them, My Thuy roundabout in District 2 was the most polluted spot in
the city
The environmental monitoring center used air quality monitors at 30 spots for
10 days every month for the last nine months at two time frames: 7:30 to 8:30
a.m and 3 to 4 p.m
The center's director admitted that the slow release of the monitoring results
was a drawback He said the monitoring was done manually and this,
combined with the need to collect samples and analyze them, made it a
time-consuming process
In 2020, the city will have nine automatic, non-stop air monitors that are
secured in nine locations One additional automatic monitor will be moved
around This will allow the results to get to the public faster, Son said
The city will also build specialized software to provide information about the
environment’s quality to the citizens on a daily basis through mass media and
smartphones It also plans to make forecasts about air pollution, he added
Son said that the monitoring data released by AirVisual was not completely
accurate, saying the organization had miscalculated the data in adverse
weather conditions
A product of Switzerland-based air quality monitoring facility IQAir AirVisual,
many Vietnamese people have relied on their AirVisual app to keep track of
the air quality over the last two months
Trang 3Amidst public concern, the government has called on Hanoi and HCMC to
keep it notified
"We must not let the public complain without proposing an effective solution,"
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc told authorities in the two cities and the
Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment last week
The press conference took place almost one month after September 22, when a
blanket of haze began enveloping HCMC
The thick haze covered iconic towers like Landmark 81, Vietnam’s tallest
building with 81 floors, and 68-floor Bitexco tower in downtown area It was
so thick that the buildings could not be seen from 300 meters away
The haze is yet to lift from the city
Trang 4VOCABULARIES TO LEARN
- Choke: to be unable to breathe because the passage to your lungs is blocked
or you cannot get enough air; to make somebody unable to breathe: làm
nghẹt thở
- Dust: a fine powder that consists of very small pieces of sand, earth, etc.: bụi
- Municipal: connected with or belonging to a town, city or district that has its
own local government: đô thị
- Hotspot: a place where fighting is common, especially for political reasons:
- Suspend: to hang something from something else: treo, lơ lững
- Intersection: a place where two or more roads, lines, etc meet or cross each
other: ngã tư
- Roundabout: a place where two or more roads meet, forming a circle that all
traffic must go around in the same direction: giao điểm
- Sample: a number of people or things taken from a larger group and used in
tests to provide information about the group: mẫu
- Automatic: having controls that work without needing a person to operate
them: tự động
- Miscalculate: to estimate an amount, a figure, a measurement, etc wrongly:
Trang 5- Haze: air that is difficult to see through because it contains very small drops
of water, especially caused by hot weather: sương mù