Via metimes.com -
TEHRAN -- Air pollution has killed 3,600 people in just a month in the Iranian capital Tehran, an official said Tuesday, describing the city's environmental situation as a "collective suicide."
"Pollution has directly or indirectly caused the deaths of 3,600 people in the month of Aban [October 23 to November 23]," said Mohammad Hadi Heydarzadeh, director of Tehran's clean air committee, quoted by Kargozaran newspaper.
He said that the deaths were caused by heart attacks brought on by the air pollution and that the smog was responsible for 80 percent of the fatal heart problems that month in Tehran, one of the world's most polluted cities.
"It is a very serious and lethal crisis, a collective suicide," he warned. "A real revolution is needed to resolve this problem."
The new figures showed a sharp rise in pollution-related deaths in Iran, where 9,900 people died of pollution in the previous Iranian year (March 2005 to March 2006).
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Back in late 2005, the BBC reported that about 27 people die each day in Tehran from pollution-related diseases.
All of this comes a day after Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei flat out rejected a UN resolution over Iran's atomic plans, vowing that the Islamic republic would not back down in its nuclear drive.
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