Break out the face masks - Vietnam is in the top ten countries with the worst air pollution in the world.
The ranking comes from the recently released, 2012 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) which was presented at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
The annual study, performed by researchers at Yale and Columbia universities, uses satilite data to measure air quality around the world. Of the 132 surveyed countries, Vietnam came in at 123rd in air quality, 80th in water quality and 79th in addressing natural resource management challenges.
Responding to the report, Professor Pham Ngoc Dang, chairman of the Vietnam Environmental Construction Association, said that the poor air quality was concentrated in urban areas as a result of traffic, construction and industrial parks.
Poor air quality can have serious ramifications on public health as it’s linked to respiratory, eye, ear and skin diseases.
(Photo for illustrative purposes only. We're not quite at China levels...yet.)
[VoV // Photo via Jonathan Kos-Read]
