Haze in Malaysia's Sarawak reaches critical level
Haze in Malaysia's Sarawak reaches critical level
KUCHING, Malaysia (Agencies): Smog choking Southeast Asia thickened dangerously in Malaysia's Borneo state of Sarawak yesterday, cutting visibility in the capital Kuching to an arm's length, officials and witnesses said.
The Air Pollutant Index rose to 839 at 11 a.m. (10 a.m. Jakarta time). It read 781 at 3 a.m.
Readings above 500 are considered extremely dangerous.
Information Minister Mohamed Rahmat said the two million residents of the state might have to be evacuated if the pollution, caused by forest and bush fires in neighboring Indonesia worsened.
A state of emergency was declared in Sarawak last Friday.
"Visibility is so bad that I cannot drive any more. I cannot even see the lights ahead," a motorcycle rider said.
Authorities declared the state of emergency after pollution readings topped 500. Schools, businesses and offices were shut, turning normally bustling Kuching into an eerie ghost town.
Exposure to an index level of even 200 to 300 for a day would be like smoking 20 cigarettes, officials have said.
"If the situation worsens further, we may have to think of evacuation," Rahmat said after launching a school campaign to promote the use of face masks.
But he said details of any evacuation plan had not been worked out, adding preventive and protective measures remained the top priority in fighting the haze.
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad last Friday ruled out the possibility of evacuating the state.
"To where? You can't go to Indonesia, you can't go to Sabah (neighboring state). It's just as bad. They have to stay indoors," Mahathir said.
Unhealthy
Air quality in most other parts of Malaysia remained unhealthy or very unhealthy yesterday. The capital Kuala Lumpur was in the very unhealthy zone.
Brunei, Singapore, Malaysia and parts of the Indonesian archipelago have been enveloped for weeks in the smoggy haze caused by the burning of huge tracts of bush and forest in Sumatra and Kalimantan, the Indonesian half of Borneo island.
The fires are often said to be set by plantation owners to clear more land.
The number of people wearing protective masks has increased sharply in all affected parts of Malaysia, where cases of sore eyes and other respiratory illnesses increased sharply.
Newspapers said yesterday more than 5,000 people in Sarawak alone had reported to hospitals with pollution-related illnesses.
In a related development, the Philippines weather bureau said yesterday haze from raging forest fires in Indonesia that had already spread to the southwestern Philippine island of Palawan, could reach Manila in three days.
A tropical cyclone brewing in the South China Sea could induce the southwest monsoon winds to carry the haze from Indonesia further into the Philippines, Rosa Perez, assistant weather service chief of the weather bureau's natural disaster reduction branch told AFP.
Smoke from forest fires in Indonesia reached Palawan and parts of the southern Philippines over the weekend.
"Based on the airflow there is an indication that (the haze) is going toward Luzon," Perez said, referring to the main Philippine island.
"By Thursday we will have an indication" of where the haze is headed, she added.