Despite the recent increase in environmental pollution in Ho Chi Minh City, automatic devices to measure the air have been damaged to the point of not being able to work for a long time.

Therefore, instead of collecting information about the quality of the air over 24 hours, city officials can now only collect such information twice a day for ten days a month with semi-automatic equipment.

The network of nine automatic air measuring stations in the city was funded by the governments of Denmark, with four units in 2000, and Norway with five units in 2002.

All the devices have been damaged and inoperative since 2009, according to the environmental measuring center of the city.

Since then, the center has periodically sent officers with semi-automatic measuring equipment to the nine locations.

An official of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment in Ho Chi Minh City said it has proposed investment in a project for the measurement of air quality for the 2016-20 period.

According to the plan, the city should build seven new fixed automatic stations for air measurement in 2016-18, a mobile automatic station, and two automatic stations to gauge the quality of the water in the Saigon River.

It will cost VND238 billion (US$10.6 million) till 2018 and another VND256 billion ($11.4 million) for the 2018-20 period to measure the quality of surface and underground water.

Air pollution causes numerous health problems such as respiratory and infectious diseases, asthma, and poisoning.

A survey showed that Ho Chi Minh City is suffering from increasing air pollution with a high rate of carbon monoxide and dust in the air.

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