Financial Tribune - Nine out of 18 air quality monitoring stations in Tehran issued emergency alerts on Wednesday with Tehran Air Quality Control Company (TAQCC) announcing that conditions are expected to worsen in the coming days.

After several days of clean air in the past few months, the anticipation of a better year in terms of air quality had grown among Tehranis. However, a blanket of dirty air has now descended on the capital dashing the high hopes.

The spokeswoman for TAQCC, Leila Nazari told ISNA on Wednesday, �Nine out of 18 air quality monitoring stations in the capital have issued emergency alerts. We expect higher air pollution across the city.�

TAQCC releases charts on air quality conditions every day. A glance at the charts shows that in the current month that began on Nov. 22, the air quality index was between 101 and 150 for six days. This marks six days with unhealthy air quality for sensitive groups within two weeks. The eight remaining days of the past two weeks passed with moderate air quality and there were zero clean days.