In an emergency plan, the Iranian regime “converted six petrochemical plants to produce petrol, in spite of warnings by oil experts that the poor-quality product would be too costly and ran the risk of damaging people’s health and cars,” the paper said.
Referring to international sanctions against the Iranian regime, the Financial Times wrote, “Since petrol has been linked to the nuclear programme, Iran’s media and politicians largely refrain from criticising the petrol policy for fear of repercussions.”
“Tehranis argue that the fact that they have never seen this level of pollution and that other big cities such as Isfahan, Arak, Tabriz, Mashhad, Karaj and Ahvaz face a similar problem shows petrol is one of the main causes of the pollution,” the Financial Times reported.
A state-run website, Aftab, reported on Wednesday that an official in the regime’s Health Ministry, Dr. Nedafi, has said that more than 3,400 people die each year due to pollution.
The official wrote in his weblog that until now the statistics of fatalities caused by pollution in Tehran had been classified by the regime.