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As Tuesday dawned citizens of the planet's dirtiest urban center encountered breathing dangerously toxic air that registered in the "severe" level.

Extremely High Air Quality Measurements

Various sections of Delhi registered an pollution measurement over 500, which equals a tenfold increase over the recommended limit set by the WHO.

Particular areas, concentrations of PM2.5 and PM10 hit highs of 1,800, representing 15 to 20 times exceeding safe levels.

Pyrotechnics Ban and Current Developments

For the past four years, officials had maintained a comprehensive restriction on the distribution and bursting of pyrotechnics during celebrations due to their major role to the deadly smog that engulfs the capital as winter sets in.

Nevertheless in recent months, the recently formed local government appealed to the highest court to request a modification of the ban.

They proposed allowing "environmentally conscious pyrotechnics" – historically doubted by environmental experts as being only roughly 30 percent less polluting – as a middle ground between "tradition and ecological concerns".

Court Decision and Enforcement

Despite concerns of environmental and health campaigners, judicial authorities complied with the proposal, stipulating that green firecrackers could be set off during designated time windows throughout the festival.

On Monday night, there was considerable flouting of the regulated periods across the capital, with little enforcement regarding whether the pyrotechnics being used were actually the eco-friendly version.

Many air quality sensors throughout the city showed contamination peaking around the night hours to some of the worst measurements observed during the festival in at least three years.

Regional Consequences

The proliferation of firecrackers during Diwali also sparked a controversy with neighbouring Pakistan, with officials in Pakistan's Punjab province pointing to declining atmospheric conditions in the city of Lahore on contaminants originating in neighboring India following the celebrations.

Long-Standing Environmental Problem

Extremely elevated levels of atmospheric toxins in the city have remained as a serious challenge for more than 15 years, with the problem gradually deteriorating.

Near celebratory seasons, the amount of toxic particulate matter in the air has been observed to spike to significantly exceeding the worst records ever measured in Beijing, which was once regarded as the planet's dirtiest metropolis.

Various Contamination Factors

This crisis in Delhi is resulting from a mix of multiple factors including automobile exhaust, dust, development work, garbage fires and smoke from farm burning in nearby states of Punjab and Haryana.

In these regions, farmers illegally set their fields on fire to expedite field preparation, creating dangerous haze that remains stagnant over the capital as cooler air arrives.

Public Health and Financial Toll

Public health and economic consequences on the roughly thirty-three million residents residing in the capital region is enormous, according to numerous research.

These hazardous conditions leads to high levels of neurological, heart and circulatory and respiratory diseases, and can even lead to malignancies.

The pollution is estimated to be accounting for ten thousand untimely fatalities each year in Delhi.