Haze disrupts flights in W. Kalimantan, Sarawak

Muhammad Nafik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Choking haze caused by forest fires and the burning of cropland thickened on Monday in West Kalimantan and Malaysia's Sarawak state, disrupting flights to and from the two areas, local officials said.

Authorities at Supadio Airport in Pontianak, the capital of West Kalimantan, and Miri Airport in Serawak had to delay regular flights for up to two hours due to the thick smoke.

Kosasih Munir, operational division head of Supadio Airport, said flights from Jakarta to Pontianak on Merpati Nusantara Airlines and Pelita Air were among those affected by the haze.

Flights, nevertheless, returned to normal after 10 a.m.

The haze, caused by forest fires in Kalimantan, also caused disruptions to internal flight services in Sarawak, Malaysia.

"Because of poor visibility, there are delays because flights to the interior are not technically equipped to handle the weather," Simon Wong, manager of Serawak state's Miri Airport, was quoted by AFP as saying.

The Meteorological and Geophysics Agency (GMT) in West Kalimantan confirmed the haze was thicker on Monday morning than last Saturday in the province, reducing visibility to 500 meters from 1 kilometer.

It said the visibility was 500 meters in the afternoon and decreased to between 10 meters and 100 meters at night.

The smoke has forced people in Pontianak to begin wearing masks, distributed by non-governmental organizations last week.

The haze has been cause by plantation clearing, cropland burning and forest fires, which continue to rage across Kalimantan.

Officials at the provincial forest fire control center said at least 1,045 hotspots were detected on Monday across virtually all of West Kalimantan, including small isles.

It was a two-fold increase on this month's earlier record of 544 hot spots last week, they added.

Hundreds of hot spots were also detected in the province of Sumatra.

Thick haze from forest fires in Kalimantan and Sumatra have prompted Malaysia's health authorities to place hospitals on the alert for the treatment of respiratory complications.

"The directive was given out last week to ensure that hospitals and private clinics immediately treat patients with respiratory problems," a health ministry spokesman told AFP on Monday.

The move is meant as a precautionary measure following government reports that air quality had deteriorated badly, the official said.

Malaysian Health Minister Chua Jui Meng said the situation was under control and denied reports the haze posed a health hazard to the population.

"Health implications have been much worse before," he said.

In 1997 and 1998, choking haze caused by forest fires in Indonesia blanketed parts of Southeast Asia for months, causing serious health problems, traffic hazards and disrupting airline schedules.

It also reportedly caused an estimated US$9.3 billion in economic losses.