Himalayas Seen From Punjab During India's 2020 Covid Lockdown

Originally published 2020-05-11.

In early April 2020, people in Jalandhar and nearby towns in Punjab, northern India, climbed onto their rooftops and saw something many of them had never noticed before: a wall of snow-capped peaks on the northern horizon. The mountains were the Dhauladhar range of the Himalayas, roughly 200 kilometres away, and they had become visible because India's nationwide coronavirus lockdown had suddenly emptied the roads and silenced most factories.

The photos spread across social media within days, and headlines claimed the Himalayas could be seen "for the first time in 30 years". Below we look at what people actually saw, why cleaner air made such a difference, what the pollution data showed, and how long the clear view lasted.

What people saw from Jalandhar

The range in the photos is the Dhauladhar, a southern arm of the Lesser Himalayas that lies entirely within the state of Himachal Pradesh. Its name is usually translated as "the White Range", from dhaula (white or pure) and dhar (range or ridge). The town of Dharamshala, home of the Tibetan government-in-exile, sits on one of its southern spurs, and its highest summit, Hanuman Tibba, reaches about 5,982 metres.

Between the plains of Punjab and these peaks there is nothing very tall to block the view, so on a truly clear day the snowline should in theory be visible. In practice, the air over the Indo-Gangetic plain is usually thick with dust, smoke and vehicle exhaust, and that haze hides the mountains completely. When the haze lifted, residents could suddenly make out ridges, glaciers and even individual peaks.

Former India cricketer Harbhajan Singh was one of the first well-known people to share the view from his home.

Never seen Dhauladar range from my home rooftop in Jalandhar..never could imagine that’s possible..clear indication of the impact the pollution has done by us to Mother Earth 🌍.. this is the view pic.twitter.com/laRzP8QsZ9

— Harbhajan Turbanator (@harbhajan_singh) April 3, 2020

Other users from Punjab posted their own rooftop photos over the following days. Some estimated the distance at 200 km, others at closer to 300 km, depending on which peak they were looking at and where they stood.

From my home town in Punjab.... we had never seen mountains 😊😊 pic.twitter.com/RhRrt9jyxB

— Arun Arora (@Arun2981) April 5, 2020

Why the lockdown cleared the air

India announced a one-day "Janata curfew" on 22 March 2020 and then imposed a full national lockdown from 25 March. Almost overnight, millions of cars, lorries, buses and two-wheelers stopped moving. Construction sites closed, and a large share of industry shut down. Those are some of the biggest sources of the fine particles and gases that normally hang over north Indian cities.

Environmental campaigner Sant Balbir Singh Seechewal, who has spent decades raising awareness of pollution in Punjab, told SBS that people around him were stunned. "We can see the snow-covered mountains clearly from our roofs," he said, adding that stars had become visible at night too. He put the change down to traffic disappearing and most industry going quiet at the same time.

Weather helps as well. Rain washes particles out of the air, and wind carries them away. Spring showers in the weeks after the lockdown began made the effect stronger. The lockdown did not create the view on its own, but it removed so much pollution that ordinary good weather was enough to reveal it.

What the pollution data showed

The clearest numbers came from Delhi. Using data from India's Central Pollution Control Board, collated by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, CNN reported that average levels of PM2.5 in New Delhi fell from 91 micrograms per cubic metre on 20 March to 26 on 27 March, a drop of about 71 per cent in a single week. Nitrogen dioxide, a gas that comes mainly from vehicle engines and power plants, fell by a similar share over the same days, from 52 to 15 on CNN's figures.

PM2.5 means particles smaller than 2.5 micrometres across, around thirty times thinner than a human hair. They are small enough to reach deep into the lungs, and the finest can pass into the bloodstream. Long-term exposure is linked to heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and chronic lung disease, which is why health agencies treat it as the most important outdoor air pollutant to track.

Similar falls were recorded in Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Bangalore. India's Central Pollution Control Board itself described a "significant improvement" in air quality during the curfew and lockdown, according to SBS.

Today's best news should be that Dhauladar Range,Himachal Pradesh, Himalayas have started to be visible from Jalandhar ( approximately 300 Kms). This has never happened in our lifetime. Loving Views...... pic.twitter.com/D8IBeC4cao

— Shailen Pratap शैलेन्द्र 🇮🇳 (@shailen_pratap) April 4, 2020

Was it really the first time in 30 years?

The "30 years" line came from headlines and residents' memories, not from any long-term visibility record. Nobody had been measuring, day by day, whether the Dhauladhar could be seen from Jalandhar since 1990. For many younger people it genuinely was the first time they had seen the mountains from home; older residents described it as something they had not seen in decades.

That nuance matters, but the core of the story holds up. Long-distance visibility depends heavily on how many particles are in the air, and the measured drop in particles during those weeks was dramatic. The memory of a whole town not seeing the mountains for a generation is itself a striking measure of how dirty the air had become.

It is also worth separating this story from a few myths that circulated at the same time. Claims that the lockdown had "healed" the planet, or that the improvement would last, were not supported. Global carbon dioxide levels kept rising in 2020, because a few months of lower emissions barely dent the amount already in the atmosphere.

India's air pollution problem in context

India is home to about 1.3 billion people and, according to IQAir's 2019 World Air Quality Report, 21 of the world's 30 most polluted cities. The main sources include road traffic, coal-fired power stations, industry, construction dust, household cooking fires and, in autumn, the burning of crop stubble across Punjab and Haryana.

Jyoti Pande Lavakare, co-founder of the clean-air group Care for Air, told CNN she had not seen skies so blue in Delhi for ten years, and called it a silver lining that people could finally "step outside and breathe".

The lockdown was also controversial. Its sudden start left millions of migrant workers without work or a way home, and some business leaders argued in the press that such a sweeping shutdown would weaken the economy. Bajaj Auto chief Rajiv Bajaj, writing in the Economic Times, was among those who questioned whether such a strict national lockdown was the right approach. The clean air came at a very real human and economic cost.

India was not alone. Satellites showed similar falls in nitrogen dioxide over China, northern Italy, Spain and even smoggy Los Angeles during their own lockdowns.

How long the view lasted

India's first lockdown was due to end on 14 April but was extended in phases, with a third phase running to 17 May and a further extension to 31 May. As restrictions eased, traffic and industry returned, and pollution climbed back. By the following winter, thick smog was again blanketing Delhi and much of northern India, and the Dhauladhar disappeared from Punjab's skyline.

Seechewal's hope was that people would remember what they had seen and push to keep the air cleaner. That is the real lesson of the photos: the haze over north India is not natural. It is produced by everyday activity, and when that activity changes, the air changes too.

What it means for cleaner air

• Vehicle and industrial emissions matter enormously. The 2020 drop showed how quickly air improves when these sources fall, which strengthens the case for cleaner fuels, electric public transport and stricter factory standards.
• Visibility is a rough but useful sign of air quality. If distant hills or buildings vanish in haze, fine-particle levels are probably high. Checking a local air-quality index before exercising outdoors is a sensible habit.
• Health effects are serious. The World Health Organization lists fine particles among the leading environmental risks to health. Anyone with asthma, heart or lung conditions who is worried about pollution should talk to a doctor.
• Change does not need a pandemic. Cities that have cut traffic, phased out coal or controlled crop burning have seen lasting gains without shutting everything down.

The mountains were always there. For a few weeks in 2020, the people of Punjab simply got to see them.

Sources: SBS: Himalayas visible for first time in 30 years as pollution levels in India drop; CNN: The world's largest coronavirus lockdown is having a dramatic impact on pollution in India; Wikipedia: Dhauladhar; The Week: Lockdown in India extended till May 31; Economic Times: Rajiv Bajaj opinion piece; WHO: Ambient air quality and health; tweets by Harbhajan Singh, Arun Arora and Shailen Pratap; header photo by Steve Hicks on Flickr.