Haze turns day into night in parts of Riau

Haze turns day into night in parts of Riau

M. Ara Syaf, The Jakarta Post, Pekanbaru

Haze from forest fires, that have been raging in several parts of
Sumatra, thickened over Riau's provincial capital, Pekanbaru, on
Wednesday, where day turned into a virtual night, forcing many
people to wear face masks in order to breathe.

The sun's rays were unable to penetrate the thick smoke, which
blanketed the city most of the day.

However, flights to and from Pekanbaru's Sultan Syarief Qasim
II airport, where the visibility was below three kilometers,
operated normally. Most public activities were also conducted
normally in the city.

There were no reports of people suffering from serious
respiratory problems, but many had begun to wear masks to prevent
health risks.

The health office in Dumai, one of the regencies in Riau worst
hit by the haze, had distributed some 5,000 masks to people.

The Dumai-based PT Caltex Pacific Indonesia ordered its
employees on Wednesday to use masks, a day after the foreign oil
company erected a red flag signifying the dangerous level of air
pollution in the town.

Caltex Communications and Media Relations Manager Poedyo
Oetomo said there were no plans, however, to evacuate its
employees from Dumai.

Thick haze also affected the towns of Bengkalis and
Bagansiapiapi, prompting local residents to complain about the
absence of effective measures by authorities to fight the fires,
which have been blamed on land clearing practices.

"We hope the relevant authorities will intervene to deal with
and put out the fires," Rahmat Kurniadi, a resident in
Bagansiapiapi, said.

However, the provincial forestry office in Pekanbaru said on
Wednesday its workers were working hard to extinguish the fires
which had consumed an estimated 10 percent of the 5,000-hectare
tourism forest in Dumai.

"Efforts to fight the fires are underway. The worst fires seem
to be near Dumai," head of the Riau forestry office Fauzi Saleh
said.

He said the joint fire-fighting team includes personnel from
Caltex and state-owned oil company Pertamina.

Based on satellite monitoring, the province's Environmental
Impact Control Agency (Bapedal) said at least 222 separate blazes
were detected across Riau and neighboring provinces on Sumatra.

Another 38 blazes were found in Malaysia, the agency added.

Meanwhile in Jakarta, the National Flight and Aerospace
Institute (Lapan) warned on Wednesday of a severe dry season to
hit Indonesia in the coming months following nationwide floods
and landslides that have killed more than 150 people across the
country.

Bidawi Hasyim, who heads Lapan's office of application and
development of remote sensing technology, said the dry season is
expected to begin in June and run through August.

"After very extreme conditions such as the inordinate amount
of rain currently, it will usually be followed by an extreme
opposite condition, namely a dry season," he was quoted by Antara
as saying.