Smog threat hovers over SE Asia again: Scientists

Smog threat hovers over SE Asia again: Scientists

SINGAPORE (Reuters): Southeast Asia could soon be blanketed by
another smoke haze as bush and forest fires spread again across
Indonesia, scientists said yesterday.

If the fires gain a foothold in Sumatra and Kalimantan --
where many new "hot spots" have been reported this week --
Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, southern Thailand and the
Philippines could see a repeat of the severe air pollution that
blotted out the sun at the end of last year.

That could spell disaster for regional economies already
battered by a currency and banking crisis, economists said.

In Jakarta, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
secretariat proposed steps to fight the smog, saying an action
plan would be in place by mid-1998, with computer links between
weather stations so all member nations could share satellite
images, wind charts and air quality data.

Three months of choking, yellow smog between September and
November caused a dramatic fall in visitors to the region,
official figures show, and the impact on the economies from lost
working days from sickness is only just being calculated.

"We could certainly be in for a repeat of last year if the
fires keep burning," said Steve Tamplin, regional adviser on
environmental health at the World Health Organization in Manila.

Indonesian officials reported yesterday more than 90 areas
affected by resurgent bush fires in Sumatra and Borneo island,
aggravated by lack of normal monsoon rain.

An official at the forest fire coordinating bureau in Jakarta
said at least 51 hot spots had been recorded on Sumatra and about
40 in Kalimantan, on the Indonesian side of Borneo.

The number of hot spots had increased significantly from four
in Sumatra and 19 in Kalimantan last week.

"The fires continue in Sumatra and Kalimantan. A lack of rain
in those regions worsens the problem," the coordinating bureau
official in Jakarta said.

Most of the fires are started by small Indonesian farmers
clearing bush for crops and by companies who burn the jungle
after logging to make way for new palm oil plantations.

This "slash and burn" process has been used for decades but in
the past few years, land clearance has accelerated and drought,
made worse by the recent El Nio weather pattern that has parched
crops across Asia, has helped spread the fires.

Unfortunately for Indonesia's Southeast Asian neighbors, most
land clearance happens in Indonesia's dry season from May to
October when the wind tends to blow north towards them.

Woon Shih Lai, director of the Meteorological Service
Singapore, says the air over most Southeast Asian states should
be clear until the end of March, but from then on they may be at
risk of air pollution, or "haze" as Asian officials call it.