Kanpur, the world's most polluted city, struggles to contain disease

Problems from air pollution are leading to multiple diseases such as lung cancer, bronchial asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and pneumonia

In the world’s most polluted city, Kanpur in northern India, the biggest hospital is so overcrowded with patients with respiratory ailments that they are often bedded in the ophthalmology ward.

Kanpur, home to 3 million people, is followed by 13 other Indian cities in a list of the places with the worst air in the world, according to rankings released this month by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Prem Singh, head of the department of medicine in Kanpur’s Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Memorial Medical College, said the number of patients the hospital receives with respiratory illnesses has more than