Smoke Covers Manaus

Fires in the region have caused extremely low air quality; 2 were arrested on suspicion of illegal fires

São Paulo

For the second consecutive day, dense smoke from the fires covered the landscape of Manaus on Thursday (12), reducing air quality to risky levels for health.

Manaus (AM), 11/10/2023 - Smoke covers Manaus for another day, and events are suspended. (Foto: Sandro Pereira/Fotoarena/Agência O Globo) - www.fotoarena.com.br

The situation has been recurring for weeks, due to fires that, according to the city hall, are in the metropolitan region. Data from the Selva project, developed by the State University of Amazonas, show that several points in the city had very poor air quality. During the morning, one of the stations recorded a concentration of fine particulate matter of 298.9 µg/m³ (micrograms per cubic meter).

According to the scale of the National Council for the Environment, the air is considered very poor from 125 µg/m³. The smoke led the city hall to suspend events such as the Boi Manaus cultural festival. The event was scheduled to take place between the 21st and 23rd, but has been postponed indefinitely. The Tururi Fair, which was supposed to start this weekend, has also been suspended. It had already been announced that the Manaus International Marathon, which was scheduled for October 15th, has been postponed to December.

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