The Ministry of the Environment declared on the afternoon of this Saturday, February 5, the generalized environmental alert for Bogotá. This is due to the high levels of contaminated material in the air, which come from the Guaviare and Orinoquía regions.
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According to the Secretary of the Environment, Carolina Urrutia, “It is possible, based on the information that is reaching us from the stations and what the satellites tell us, that we will have the worst fire season in the country in the last 10 or 15 years.”.
“We have more sources of heat and more smoke and particulate matter are reaching us, a product of the burning of organic matter by forest fires,” added the official.
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The previous weekend, the indicators of the stations of Kennedy and Fontibon they went from yellow (moderate) to orange (regular). What has been repeated during the last week, in nine other stations: Móvil Fontibón and 7ma, Fontibón, Kennedy, Ciudad Bolívar, Jazmín, Las Ferias, High Performance Center and Suba that registered an orange alert.
THE NEW MEASURES
To mitigate the impact of environmental pollution, new measures will be in force in the capital of the country during the week of February 6 to 11.
According to the mayor of the capital, Claudia López, the administration will make available to the National Government, a fire brigade specialized in forest fires, to support conflagration control tasks in the Guaviare region.
Second, it will declare hospital yellow alerta in Bogotá, for the care of acute respiratory disease (ARD), for which the district ordered public and private health entities to strengthen the human and technical infrastructure to attend to ARD cases.
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The mayor also mentioned that Bogotans are recommended to use permanently and obligatorily the mask in all areas of the city. In addition to not doing physical activity outdoors.
Finally, he said that if within eight days the situation has not improved “Restrictive measures will be taken that will involve the evaluation of transportation measures or even the cancellation of the cycle path“.
BRIEFCASE
(With information from EL TIEMPO)