Haze delays flights in Pontianak
The Jakarta Post, Pontianak/Jakarta
Thick haze from forest fires has blanketed many parts of Kalimantan and Sumatra, reducing visibility and badly affecting local residents and those in neighboring Malaysia.
In West Kalimantan, low visibility forced commercial planes to delay all flights from and to its capital of Pontianak by up to one-and-a-half hours on Thursday morning.
"The delays are effective for incoming and outgoing flights at the airport between 7 a.m. and 8:30 a.m.," an airport information officer told The Jakarta Post on Thursday. Flight schedules returned to normal beginning at 9 a.m.
Officials at the local Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) said visibility in Pontianak and surrounding regencies was reduced to between 200 meters and 400 meters in the morning and 1,000 meters in the evening.
The haze, which started shrouding Pontianak on Monday, has also raised air pollution to hazardous levels.
Many motorists and pedestrians have complained of eye and skin irritation and respiratory problems.
Head of the Pontianak health office Oskar Primadi said on Thursday that at least 2,464 people had experienced respiratory problems resulting from the smoke pollution.
The local administration urged residents in most affected areas to wear masks to reduce health risks.
"The haze is expected to thicken and the environmental condition will deteriorate in coming days as there will be no rainfall across West Kalimantan," Supriandi, a BMG official, told the Post on Thursday.
Smoke has also blanketed many other regencies in the provinces, including Putussibau, Sintang, Sanggau and Sambas.
"The bad weather has continued for the past three days in all parts of West Kalimantan. Today (Thursday) the haze is worsening and is expected to continue until next week," said Maroni, another local BMG official.
The haze was blamed on forest fires in almost all parts of Pontianak and its neighboring regencies.
Satellite data from a local forest fire control body showed that at least 544 hot spots were found in the province on Tuesday and Wednesday, but the number decreased to only 90 on Thursday.
Meanwhile, in Jakarta, Minister of Forestry M. Prakosa dismissed on Thursday reports claiming that forest fires in West Kalimantan were uncontrollable.
He said local authorities were still able to control the forest fires. "After being checked, there are hot spots but the number is not as many as reported in the media," he said.
The areas included peat land behind the Tanjungpura University campus located on Jl. Budi Utomo, some 300 meters from the West Kalimantan governor's office.
Local fire-fighting workers put out the fires on Thursday afternoon.
Thick smoke also cloaked some parts of East Kalimantan, including its capital of Samarinda, Bontang, Sangatta and Sangkulirang.
The haze-affected areas also included North Paser Regency, on the border of East Kalimantan and South Kalimantan province. But, Balikpapan was free from the smoke on Thursday.
Many hot spots were detected in areas from Bontang to Sangatta and Sangkulirang within the Kutai National Park in the town of East Kutai.
The forest fires are believed to have resulted from slash-and- burn practices to clear land for plantations in the Kutai National Park.
The smoke from the fires also annoyed residents, particularly motorists, across East Kalimantan.
"Today we can smell the odor of burning wood when we go out of the house. The clothes dried out outside the house also smell of smoke," said Nani, a housewife living in the Teluk Lingga area, East Kutai.
Haze from forest fires in Sumatra has also blanketed parts of the Malaysian Peninsular, reducing visibility to as low as 1.5 kilometers near the capital Kuala Lumpur, government officials said on Thursday.
"The southwesterly winds have blown the haze toward the peninsula. We learned there are about 50 hot spots in Sumatra," an official at the Malaysian Meteorological Service was quoted by Reuters as saying.