Indonesia firefighters ‘overwhelmed’ by Sumatra blazes

Agence France-Presse

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Indonesia sends two helicopters with cloud-seeding equipment to create artificial rain and stop forest fires

Photo from EPA/JIBRIL

JAKARTA, Indonesia (UPDATED) – Firefighters battling blazes on Indonesia’s Sumatra island that have cloaked Singapore in record-breaking levels of smog are “overwhelmed” and unable to cope, an official said Friday, June 21.

“We have been fighting fires 24 hours a day for two weeks,” Ahmad Saerozi, the head of the natural resources conservation agency in Riau province, where the fires are centered, told AFP.

“We are overwhelmed and in a state of emergency,” he said. He was referring to efforts by more than 160 firefighters in the Bengkalis district where the biggest fires are burning, mostly underground in peatland.

“Aircraft must drop water as soon as possible. We can’t do this alone,” he said.

Indonesia’s national disaster agency said on Friday that two helicopters had been dispatched with cloud-seeding equipment to prompt rainfall, and it was hoped they could start operating later in the day.

Singapore’s pollution index hit the critical 400 level at 11:00 am Friday, an all-time record making the haze potentially life-threatening to ill and elderly people, according to a government monitoring site. Acrid smoke was seeping into residential and commercial buildings across the city-state.

Saerozi said the fires were mostly in peat that was three to four meters (10 to 13 feet) deep.

“It is still burning under the surface so we have to stick a hose into the peat to douse the fire,” he said.

“We take one to two hours to clear a hectare, and by then another fire has started elsewhere. The sea breeze is also blowing the fires to other areas.”

Extra personnel from the conservation agency, the local government and palm oil plantation employees had been drafted in to help tackle the blazes, he said. 

Potentially life-threatening level

As Indonesia stepped up its fire-fighting efforts, Singapore’s smog index hit the critical 400 level, making it potentially life-threatening to the ill and elderly people, according to a government monitoring site.

The all-time record level was reached at 11:00 am (0300 GMT) on Friday after a rapid rise in the Pollutant Standards Index (PSI).

According to Singapore government guidelines, sustained PSI average levels above 400 on a 24-hour basis “may be life-threatening to ill and elderly persons”.

Watch a scene from Singapore below.

Before the latest crisis which erupted on Monday, the previous Singapore air pollutant index high was 226, recorded in September 1997 at the height of a Southeast Asian calamity.

That episode also resulted from vast amounts of haze from Indonesia, where slash-and-burn farming generates heavy smoke during the dry season that begins in June.

Parts of Malaysia close to Singapore have also been severely affected by the smog this week.

‘Dramatic impact’ on Singapore

The haze crisis has had a dramatic impact on life in Singapore, with the city-state’s residents scaling back their activities in a bid to protect themselves.

Fast-food deliveries have been cancelled, the army has suspended field training and even Singapore’s top marathon runner has been forced to run indoors.

Singapore resident Peace Chiu voices out on her experience of the smog. Watch her interview below.

Hunched commuters are wearing masks or cover their mouths as they travel to and from home, with major drug stores telling AFP they have temporarily run out of masks and refusing to accept advance orders.

Vivian Balakrishnan, Singapore’s minister for the environment and water resources, who has demanded “definitive action” from Indonesia to stop the haze, was due to meet his Indonesian counterpart in Jakarta later Friday.

The haze crisis has caused tensions to escalate dramatically between tiny Singapore and its vast neighbor, with the city-state repeatedly demanding that Jakarta step up its efforts to put out the fires.

However, Indonesian officials have become irate at the demands, and on Thursday the minister coordinating Jakarta’s response to the crisis accused Singapore of acting “like a child”. – Rappler.com

 

 

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