Singapore may get reprieve from haze

Singapore may get reprieve from haze

SINGAPORE (Reuters): Scattered rain and changing winds will keep Singapore free of smog from forest fires raging on Borneo island for the next two weeks, a senior meteorologist said yesterday.

"There have been shifts in the wind directions to south- easterly and Singapore, being on the edge of it, can expect better weather as a result," Sim Choon Siong of the Meteorological Service of Singapore told a media conference.

He was speaking after a week of hazy weather in the city state when smoke from the fires reduced air quality to "moderate" from "good" for the first time this year.

Late last year, Singapore, along with swathes of Southeast Asia, spent three months under a grim blanket of smoke blown in from Indonesia's Sumatra island and parts of Borneo.

Sim said Sumatra appeared fire-free this year.