00:00Two-year-old Samaya Ansari has just come off oxygen support.
00:09Now, she's playing with her brother.
00:12A bright moment in a place where the haze never lifts.
00:17They live in Birnihat in northeast India,
00:20the most polluted place on earth,
00:23where even the walls turn black.
00:27She faces difficulty in breathing, congested chest and coughing, among other issues.
00:37It has been happening for the last eight to nine months, almost a year,
00:41but it has aggravated recently.
00:43With tens of thousands living in the thick pollution,
00:47many more people are at risk.
00:50Vehicle emissions are high here,
00:52and the town is home to around 80 industries,
00:56including distilleries, steel plants, and cement factories.
01:01Birnihat also sits between the states of Assam and Makhalaya,
01:06and its bowl-shaped terrain traps the air.
01:10It gets so toxic here that it causes skin rashes and burns the eyes.
01:16In the health clinics, coughing adults and children line up for help.
01:23In most of the cases that we see here, be it adult or in pediatric section,
01:27we see most, like 90% of the cases will fall in cough and cough.
01:31So OPD, likewise, the total number of cases will fall towards respiratory problems.
01:38If a child does not respond adequately,
01:40it requires multiple hospital admissions,
01:42it requires administration of oxygen or even ventilation for that matter.
01:46So these are a group of children who are at risk to develop long-term lung damage,
01:51which can eventually cause multi-organ dysfunction when they grow up and become adults.
02:01India has bypassed many environmental safeguards in the name of economic growth.
02:06And in Birnihat, the smoke lingers everywhere.
02:11Pollution here is 25 times higher than what experts consider safe.
02:19It's so bad, people can't even dry their laundry outside or grow a garden.
02:26Everything in the surrounding area has turned black.
02:29Earlier, there was just one factory nearby,
02:32but because of the new factory, we are unable to grow anything like betel nut or leaves.
02:37We cannot even stay indoors.
02:39But following a stark warning from a Swiss air quality watchdog,
02:44change might finally come.
02:47The state governments of Assam and Meghalaya have agreed to collaborate,
02:51forming a joint committee to tackle Birnihat's pollution,
02:55a move that many hope will clear the air and put a stop to the health crisis.
03:00Eason Chen and Zalanchata for Taiwan Plus.
03:03Eason Chen and Zalanchata for Taiwan Plus.
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