One killed, 17 villagers trapped in forest fire

JAKARTA (JP): A forest fire has killed one teenager, injured two women and trapped 17 others in Wanim village, Jayawijaya regency, Irian Jaya, Antara reported yesterday.

The news agency said the incident took place Wednesday. The injured women were evacuated and taken to the hospital in Wamena, the capital of the regency. As of yesterday afternoon, however, the fate of the trapped villagers was still not known.

Antara did not elaborate on how the incident happened.

Regent JB Wenas, who visited the remote village yesterday, told reporters in Wamena that locals were continuing to search for the 17 villagers.

Wenas said that forest fires, that have ravaged areas near the village for the past two months, have been spreading because of the strong wind blowing across the region.

"Not only have the fires destroyed houses, but destroyed farmlands as well, causing villagers to lose their food sources," Wenas was quoted as saying.

Fires have ravaged hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest in Sumatra, Kalimantan, Java and Irian Jaya. However, the teenager's death was the first reported due to the fires.

Six other deaths have been reported over the past month but they were a result of severe haze pollution caused by the forest fires. Twenty million other people in Indonesia and several neighboring countries are reportedly facing respiratory problems due to the haze.

The government has orchestrated concerted efforts to combat fires from the ground and from the air with some international assistance and local volunteers.

Malaysia, for instance, sent 1,078 firefighters. They returned home yesterday after helping to extinguish forest fires in the provinces of Riau, Jambi and South Sumatra for 23 days.

Hundreds of thousands of protective respiratory masks and other humanitarian relief has been dispatched either by the government, non-governmental organizations or international communities to the worst-hit areas.

Yesterday, for instance, Taiwan sent 100,000 protective masks. Its business community donated 20,000 kilograms of rice to Indonesia, according to the Taipei Economic and Trade Office Information Division.

It said the donations would be received today by the chairman of the National Disaster Management Coordinating Board Azwar Anas, who is also the Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare.

The Environmental Impact Management Agency (Bapedal) said that as of Wednesday several towns in eight provinces in Sumatra and Kalimantan were still covered by thick haze.

The airports of Sultan Taha in Jambi, Simpang Tiga in Riau, Tabing in Padang, Sultan M. Baddarudin in Palembang, Padang Kamiling in Bengkulu and Tjilik Riwut in Palangkaraya were still closed due to poor visibility, the agency said.

It said the number of hot spots, or fire locations, increased overnight from 23 to 53 according to the satellite images interpreted by the United States' National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The agency also said that slight haze was still covering other parts of Sumatra, West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, West Java and neighboring Malaysia and Singapore.

It said the "dominant" wind was blowing westerly, toward the Indian Ocean.

Food

In Jayawijaya regency in Irian Jaya, Wenas told Antara yesterday that many villagers in remote areas in the mountainous regency faced food shortages.

He said worsening haze had hampered the planned airlift of relief to Baliem valley, where many villages were suffering from a lack of food.

Two aircraft, one provided by the Mission Fellowship Aviation and another by the Advent Christian foundation, along with a helicopter provided by the PT Freeport Indonesia mining company were already operating in Wamena to dispatch relief.

Three hundred and ninety-eight malnourished people have died of malaria and cholera in Jayawijaya. In Merauke regency in the southern part of the province, 23 people have died for the same reason.

Twenty-four other tribespeople in Puncakjaya regency have also died, bringing the number of drought-related deaths in the Irian Jaya province to 445.

Wenas warned the death toll could rise as the staple yam crop could not be harvested for at least another eight months.

About 150 people in the regency are suffering from severe diarrhea, Antara reported. (aan)