Medan airport closed due to thick haze
MEDAN, North Sumatra (JP): Polonia International Airport here was closed till about noon on Thursday due to thick haze enveloping the area from the raging forest fires.
The head of Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) Station at the airport, R. Syaefuddin, confirmed that visibility during most of the morning was only about 700 meters, far below minimum requirement of 1,200 meters for airflights.
"It's still safe for planes to take off from here, but it's too risky for planes heading here to land," he said.
Only one plane took off from the airport in the morning, bound for Penang, Malaysia.
A Garuda Indonesian Airways from Jakarta which was due to land here at about 9 a.m. was still unable to land two hours later.
One of the passengers on the flight was People's Consultative Assembly Speaker Amien Rais who was going to open a regional meeting of the North Sumatera branch of the National Mandate Party (PAN).
The plane then turned and landed in Pekanbaru, Riau, instead.
Airport officials were on extra alert. Many remembered the tragic 1997 air crash of a Garuda airplane crash also at a time when the area was blanketed with haze.
"But the visibility was much lower then, only around 250 meters," Syaefuddin said.
In the afternoon visibility at Polonia gradually increased to 1,000 meters.
The haze enveloped the city was said to have been brought about by southeast winds from forest fires in Aceh, Barumun, North Sumatera, and Riau.
The BMG on Thursday said it had detected five hot spots in Aceh, while in Barumun and Riau there were three hot spots each.
Despite the visible haze, the head of the City Health Agency Syahrial R. said that it is not necessary yet to wear mask, but people should still be prepared.
Syahrial advised residents to just stay home if possible, to avoid respiratory diseases.
The Environmental Management Agency (Bappedal) stated on Tuesday that the fires started in early July and began to spread on July 9.
The fires spread after burning was used to clear land.
Bappedal claims that about two-thirds of the fires were caused by land clearing by locals and the rest by plantation companies and industrial plant forest companies (HTI).
Due to the south-west monsoon surface winds, the haze from the fires has also been pushed into neighboring Singapore and Malaysia.
Thin layer
Reuters reported that the haze, which had reached as far as Thailand on Wednesday and a thin layer covered much of peninsula Malaysia since the weekend, had receded on Thursday.
Haze lifted in the south of Thailand increasing visibility from around 5.8 kilometers to around nine kilometers, an official at Thailand's Meteorological Office said.
Environment officials in Malaysia said only one area, a town in Penang state, still registered unhealthy levels of air quality, a marked improvement from the weekend.
Meanwhile in Singapore environmental officials urged Indonesia on Thursday to prosecute those responsible for plantation fires spewing haze.
Air quality levels have not deteriorated badly in the city- state because winds have been blowing from a south to south-east direction, the Environment Ministry (ENV) said.
If the direction changes and the fires in central Sumatra continue, the situation could worsen, the ministry warned.
"What we want to see is prosecution," Singapore's Environment Ministry deputy secretary Wang Mong Lin told The Straits Times. "We just have to wait and see."(39/09)