BMKG warns Pekanbaru air quality hazardous due to haze

The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) Pekanbaru station in Riau Province has reported that haze is blanketing Pekanbaru with visibility of around two kilometres and air quality at hazardous levels.

BMKG Pekanbaru forecaster Ranti Kurniati said on Tuesday that the visibility figures were based on data updated since Monday (24/8) at 16.00 WIB. Pekanbaru was observed at 2 km with smoke, Rengat at 2 km with smoke, Pelalawan at 5 km and Tambang at 3 km with smoke.

According to her, as a result of the smoke, air quality in Pekanbaru based on PM2.5 has reached hazardous levels since the early hours of Tuesday. The figure briefly hit 508.8 micrograms per cubic metre at 01.00 WIB.

The remaining readings were in Jambi (262), Lampung (138), Bangka Belitung (77), Riau Islands (57), Bengkulu (19), North Sumatra (18), West Sumatra (13) and Aceh (9).

For Riau Province, the highest number of hotspots was in Pelalawan Regency with 153 points, followed by Indragiri Hilir Regency (140). The remainder were in Bengkalis (32), Indragiri Hulu (26), Kampar (12), Siak (6), Rokan Hulu (6), Meranti Islands (3), Pekanbaru City (3) and Kuantan Singingi (1).