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Tuesday brought residents of the planet's dirtiest urban center were faced with exposed to dangerously toxic air that registered in the "severe" level.

Record-Breaking Air Quality Measurements

Several parts of Delhi recorded an AQI over 500, which equals 10x the recommended threshold set by the World Health Organization.

Particular areas, concentrations of toxic particulate matter reached peaks of 1,800, equating to fifteen to twenty times above healthy limits.

Pyrotechnics Restrictions and Recent Developments

For the past four years, the government had maintained a complete ban on the purchase and ignition of firecrackers during Diwali due to their substantial impact to the deadly pollution that blankets the metropolis as winter begins.

Nevertheless earlier this year, the newly elected city leadership appealed to the supreme court to seek a modification of the restrictions.

Officials advocated for allowing "green crackers" – historically doubted by conservation groups as being only roughly 30 percent lower impact – as a middle ground between "tradition and public health".

Legal Verdict and Enforcement

Much to the frustration of environmental and health campaigners, the court approved the appeal, mandating that environmentally conscious fireworks could be ignited during designated time windows throughout the celebrations.

During the celebrations, there was extensive disregard of the regulated periods across the city, with minimal monitoring regarding whether the pyrotechnics being used were actually the eco-friendly version.

Several recording stations throughout Delhi showed contamination peaking around the night hours to extremely hazardous readings recorded during the festival in at least recent memory.

Cross-Border Consequences

The proliferation of pyrotechnics during the festival also initiated a controversy with neighbouring the neighboring country, with authorities in Pakistan's Punjab province partly blaming declining pollution levels in the city of Lahore on hazardous particles originating in neighboring India following the celebrations.

Chronic Environmental Issue

The dangerously high levels of atmospheric toxins in the city have persisted as a serious challenge for over a decade and a half, with the problem showing no improvement.

Around celebratory seasons, the amount of hazardous particulate matter in the air has been observed to increase dramatically to significantly exceeding the most severe readings ever measured in the Chinese city, which was formerly regarded as the planet's dirtiest metropolis.

Multiple Pollution Factors

This crisis in the city is resulting from a combination of multiple factors including heavy vehicle emissions, construction debris, building projects, waste incineration and smoke from agricultural fires in adjacent regions of neighboring agricultural zones.

In these regions, farmers regularly ignite agricultural waste to prepare for next season, generating toxic pollution that then gets trapped over the capital as colder air descends.

Public Health and Financial Impact

The economic and health consequences on the nearly 33 million people residing in the Delhi area is significant, according to multiple investigations.

These hazardous conditions causes increased incidence of neurological, heart and circulatory and breathing conditions, and can even lead to cancer.

Air quality crisis is calculated to be accounting for 10,000 premature deaths per year in the capital.