Copa America host city Santiago declares 'environmental emergency' over air pollution

The Chilean capital is among the most-polluted cities in Latin America and rising levels of smog have led to a first 'environmental emergency' to be declared in 16 years

Jun 22, 2015 15:35:03

Santiago has declared an environmental emergency due to rising levels of smog and poor air quality with Copa America hosts Chile scheduled to play Uruguay in the first quarter-final in the Estadio Nacional on Wednesday.
Air pollution has reached critical levels with high traffic and a lack of rainfall leading to city officials taking the measure; rainfall levels for June in the area are at their lowest since 1968.

Three days of monitoring showed that pollution levels had not been reduced so regional authorities were forced to respond by declaring the first environmental emergency since 1999. On Monday between 0730 and 2100 local time 40 per cent of Santiago's cars which have catalytic converters and 80 per cent of those which do not are banned from the roads while 3,000 factories are also shut for the day.

Physical education and outdoor activities are also recommended to be suspended although the Copa America is exempt from these restrictions. No Copa America action is scheduled for Monday with teams enjoying a two-day break before the knockouts.
"The Copa America respects the international commitments of Chile so it will not be suspended but we hope that for Wednesday the levels will go down," said the mayor of the Santiago Metropolitan region, Claudio Orrego.
"What is at stake here is the health of the people. We have really bad conditions in regard to the environmental and atmospheric conditions."

Santiago is a city of around 6.3 million inhabitants and is nestled in a valley almost completely surrounded by mountains, which means that it is affected by a lack of wind to disperse air pollutants especially in the months of autumn and winter.