The deputy health minister of Iran’s regime announced that with worsening air pollution, from November 22 to November 29, more than 170,000 people sought emergency care due to cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses.
On December 9, Alireza Raisi stated that emergency visits increased by 20% to 25% during this period. Most of the cases came from eleven provinces and cities such as Arak, Isfahan, Ahvaz, Tabriz, Tehran, Karaj, and Mashhad—areas experiencing the worst air pollution.
The deputy health minister estimated the annual health-related cost of air pollution at about 17 billion dollars and said more than 59,000 deaths each year are linked to pollution.
Air Pollution In Khuzestan Caused More Than 1,600 Deaths In Past Year
In recent weeks, air pollution has intensified across various cities in Iran and rising levels of pollutants have pushed air quality in some major cities into unhealthy and, in certain areas, red-alert conditions.
The state-run Fars News Agency reported on December 8 that the use of heavy fuel oil (mazut) in the country’s power plants had risen sharply during the first fifteen days of the month.
According to the report, on November 22 and 23, power plants consumed 56 million and 54 million liters of mazut respectively. The peak occurred on December 2, with 88 million liters burned.
Ismail Kahrom, an ecologist and environmental activist—against whom Iran’s regime judiciary filed charges on December 8—had previously warned that mazut used in Iran contains “seven times the global standard” for sulfur, and that the gasoline used in the country is also “not suitable.”
He had said that if mazut is poured into water, all creatures “from microbes to whales” would be poisoned; if poured into soil, it contaminates groundwater; and if burned in the air, it is “100% carcinogenic.”
The darkest year for the capital’s air in two decades
Ali Pirhosseinlou, former adviser to the deputy mayor for transportation and traffic in Tehran, stated that based on two decades of air quality monitoring data, the capital’s air has never been “this dark.”
On December 9, Pirhosseinlou wrote in a piece for the state-run daily Shargh that 2025 is the worst year on record in terms of air pollution in Tehran.
He added that air quality data has been collected from numerous monitoring stations across Tehran for about twenty years, and never has the data told such a grim story.
Despite repeated closures of schools, universities, and sports facilities, the severe air pollution continues across many cities.
The lowest number of days with acceptable air quality
Pirhosseinlou also wrote that the number of days with “acceptable” air quality this year has broken a twenty-year record—dropping to “about one-third of all days in the year.”
He added that in recent years this figure had “fluctuated between two-thirds and three-quarters of the year’s days,” except in 2022 and 2024 when it dropped to about half, and in 2011 when it fell slightly below half—“but even then, conditions were never as bad as this year.”
The former Tehran municipal official added that two developments pushed Tehran’s air quality “beyond tolerable limits” over the past two decades: “One was 2011, when intensified sanctions led to the distribution of petrochemical gasoline and smog blanketed Tehran, and the other was 2022 and afterward, when pollutant management in the city was effectively abandoned.”
Tehran Municipality censored air-pollution data
Pirhosseinlou emphasized that the municipality has neither ideas nor plans for reducing traffic and controlling mobile pollution sources, shows no determination to modernize mass-transit and diesel fleets, offers no hope for improving fuel quality, and presents no outlook for controlling the rapidly aging vehicle fleet.
He accused the Tehran Municipality of “restricting access to information” related to air pollution.
According to him, while the public previously had open access to data on the Tehran Air Quality Control Company’s website, now individuals must submit at least “twelve fields of personal information” along with a written request, and only after official approval can they access the data.
Earlier, Somayeh Rafiei, head of the Environment Caucus in the regime’s parliament, had criticized the “lack of transparent information” and “censorship” of air-pollution data in Iran.
