Haze turns day into night in Sumatra island

Haze turns day into night in Sumatra island

JAKARTA (JP): Thick haze from forest fires shrouded several
towns in Sumatra on Friday, keeping Pekanbaru, Riau, mostly in
the dark during daylight hours.

By 9 a.m. most homes in the provincial capital were using
lights and vehicles on the roads were forced to turn on their
headlights.

Antara reported that rain later in the evening did not wash
away the dense smog, which has been declared a natural disaster
by the government.

Volunteers and city employees handed out cotton surgical masks
to commuters and pedestrians to reduce the potential of
respiratory ailments.

According to the Haze Monitoring Center at the Meteorology and
Geophysics Office, the thick haze spread over Padang, West
Sumatra, and the regencies of Bengkalis, Indragiri Hilir and
Indragiri Hulu in Riau.

There were also reports of it reaching towns in West
Kalimantan.

Many fear a repeat of the region-wide catastrophe brought on
by haze from forest fires in 1997.

The Environmental Impact Management Agency (Bapedal) said
there were 515 hot spots in Riau, from a total of 711 on the
island of Sumatra and 42 in Kalimantan.

Despite the assistance of emergency fire-fighting teams,
hundreds of hectares of national park and plantations in West
Sumatra are up in smoke.

Although the haze has darkened parts of Sumatra since last
week, hospitals have yet to report any major increase in health
problems, particularly patients seeking treatment for respiratory
disorders.

Meanwhile, the secretary-general of the Ministry of Forestry
and Plantations, Soeripto, said in Pekanbaru that four forestry
firms were to blame for the forest fires.

Antara quoted him identifying the companies as PT Musi Mas, PT
Inti Indosawit, PT ADEI and PT Jatim Jaya Perkasa.

"Their permits can be revoked, if necessary," Soeripto said.

President Abdurrahman Wahid has promised to do everything
possible to prevent another ecological disaster on the scale of
three years ago, and Minister of Foreign Affairs Alwi Shihab
reiterated on Friday that the government would take stern
measures against errant firms.

Action

The haze is raising concern in neighboring Singapore and parts
of Malaysia.

In Bangkok, the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP)
lauded on Friday Indonesia's move to punish the companies.

"The Indonesian government's intention to summon logging and
plantation company owners and to review their licenses is the
kind of tough measures needed to preempt another crisis," UNEP
Asia-Pacific regional director Nirmal Andrews said in a statement
as quoted by Reuters.

In its statement, UNEP said the authorities detected about
1,200 fires on Sumatra and Kalimantan, and that the haze from the
fires had driven the pollution index on the islands above the 300
mark, a level considered unhealthy.

It was also reported that the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) said on Friday it put into operation its fire
suppression mobilization measures in Riau to contain the spread
of the fires and haze.

Environment ministers of the 10-member grouping intend to hold
a meeting addressing the haze problem in Brunei on April 4.

It is the latest in a series of informal talks among the
ministers which began in 1998, when ASEAN launched a
comprehensive action plan to tackle the haze problem.

The Meteorological Service Department of Singapore said its
pollutants standards index was 41, a level where air quality is
within a good range with no adverse health effects, despite some
increase recorded in previous days.

Meanwhile, a senior Malaysian official said on Friday the
country was not yet directly affected.

"The air quality is good, we are not affected by the fires in
Sumatra and Kalimantan," environment ministry director-general
Rosnani Ibrahim told AFP. (dja/01)