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Tuesday brought residents of the world's most polluted city encountered exposed to dangerously toxic air that fell into the "alarming" level.

Alarming Air Quality Levels

Multiple areas of the capital recorded an AQI exceeding 500, which equals a tenfold increase over the safe threshold established by the World Health Organization.

In some locations, readings of toxic particulate matter reached peaks of 1,800, equating to 15-20x above healthy standards.

Fireworks Prohibition and Current Changes

For the past four years, officials had enforced a comprehensive restriction on the sale and use of firecrackers during celebrations due to their significant contribution to the hazardous haze that covers the capital as the cold season sets in.

However recently, the current regional leadership appealed to the supreme court to propose a relaxation of the prohibition.

They proposed allowing "green crackers" – which have been doubted by environmentalists as being only approximately one-third less polluting – as a compromise between "tradition and public health".

Judicial Ruling and Enforcement

Much to the frustration of public health and environmental campaigners, the court agreed to the proposal, stipulating that green firecrackers could be ignited during limited time windows throughout the festival.

On Monday night, there was extensive disregard of the time restrictions across the capital, with insufficient monitoring regarding whether the firecrackers being used were actually the supposedly greener variety.

Several monitoring devices throughout the capital registered contamination reaching highest levels around midnight to some of the worst readings observed during the festival in at least three years.

Cross-Border Effects

The widespread use of firecrackers during the festival also triggered a blame game with neighbouring Pakistan, with officials in Pakistani the Punjab region partly blaming deteriorating pollution levels in the city of Lahore on contaminants traveling from across the border following the festivities.

Persistent Pollution Problem

Extremely elevated levels of air contamination in Delhi have persisted as a serious problem for more than 15 years, with the problem gradually deteriorating.

During Diwali, the concentration of dangerous particulate matter in the air has been documented to shoot up to 70% higher the worst records ever documented in Beijing, which was once regarded as the globally most contaminated metropolis.

Diverse Pollution Factors

This crisis in the capital is resulting from a combination of multiple factors including transportation pollution, dust, development work, rubbish burning and haze from crop residue ignition in nearby areas of neighboring agricultural zones.

Within these states, agricultural workers illegally ignite agricultural waste to expedite field preparation, generating dangerous smog that then gets trapped over the metropolitan area as cooler air descends.

Medical and Financial Toll

The economic and health toll on the nearly 33 million people calling home the capital region is enormous, according to multiple studies.

The contaminated air results in high levels of neurological, heart and circulatory and breathing diseases, and can result in cancer.

Environmental contamination is estimated to be accounting for 10,000 untimely mortalities annually in the city.