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Last Updated: 08 March 2020

The small village of Věřňovice between Bohumín and the Polish border is often the first to cleanse the air quickly during a smog situation. This is so even now when the daily limit of airborne dust is exceeded more than four times. Local people are already accustomed to this, claiming that dirty air is coming from somewhere else.

I get off in the middle of Věřňovice at the school building. I look around, I don't see anybody here, so I guess I'll go among the kids first. “We go for walks every day, but today we have to change the program and go to the gym,” says teacher Gabriela Bortlíková.

He commutes to Věřňovice and often sees that the fog is more dense in the village than elsewhere. "I think that Věřňovice is deposited lower than other municipalities and that is why the smog is holding here," adds the teacher.

I meet an older man in the square. He says he's on the bus and the doctor. “More than half of us are gas-fired, little is used for coal, as they say. And if it goes from the east, so there is Dětmarovice, power plant and all that. And from Ostrava on that side, ”he shows.

After a short walk through Věřňovice, I must say that I have actually seen no dark smoke rising from the chimney. Only light smoke rises here. Well, right up. So there's total calm here.

“Well, because it's fog, it's hard to breathe. It doesn't go uphill. As cold as it is, I don't go out, ”says Mrs. Josef, who had to go out for shopping. “Sixty years I breathe normally here. I'm used to it, I don't feel it, ”another older man wanders past Mrs. Josefa's house.

Before leaving Věřňovice I went to the measuring station just outside the village. It is absolutely quiet here, no twigs move, everything is frozen and visibility about 300 meters. Ideal conditions for smog.

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