At least 1.5 million tons of fuel is consumed by Kabul residents annually to produce heat in their homes or offices, Kabul Municipality said.
 
Most of the fuel has a low-quality and adds to the increasing air pollution in Kabul City, the municipality said.  
 
“Mostly Kabul’s bathhouses use low-quality fuel,” Head of Kabul Municipality’s Health Department Mohammad Edris Tokhi said. “We prevented them (the bathhouses in Kabul) at some extent as now 60 to 70 percent of them are using gas instead of coal,” said Tokhi.
 
Physicians said children and elderly people are the main victims of the diseases caused by air pollution. 
 
They said air pollution causes various diseases like mental, respiratory and heart diseases.
 
“There are different types of heart diseases and air pollution is one of the main reasons for those diseases. Air pollution condenses the blood flow and causes formation of clots and these clots enter to heart valves,” Shoaib Shaban, a medical doctor, told TOLOnews.
 
Kabul residents said they are worried about the growing air pollution in the city.
 
“The air is filled with smoke and pollution especially in morning and evenings,” Kabul resident Jamshid said.
 
“People use coal because they don’t have sufficient electricity to use for warming their houses,” said Mohammad, a Kabul resident.
 
Kabul Municipality says residents in big cities including Kabul, Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif are not paying the required attention to help reduce air pollution in areas where they live.