S'pore calls for help to fight RI fire

S'pore calls for help to fight RI fire

SINGAPORE (Reuters): Singapore called for international help yesterday to put out Indonesia's spreading forest and bush fires.

Environment Minister Yeo Cheow Tong told parliament Singapore had only a slim chance of avoiding smog pollution if the fires, which have been raging on in Sumatra and Kalimantan, Indonesian part of Borneo island, continued.

The fires have been blamed on logging companies and small farmers clearing land for cultivation.

Similar fires between August and November last year spread a thick choking smog, or "haze" as local officials call it, across several Southeast Asian countries, closing airports and factories and causing widespread health problems.

"The fires have now spread over a huge area and the situation has been made worse because of the drought Kalimantan has been facing because of the El Nino effect," Yeo said.

"That is why we have to mobilize international support. Because in the current economic situation Indonesia is in, I think it will be difficult to expect them to deploy a lot of resources," Yeo said.

The El Nino weather phenomenon, a warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean, has brought drought to parts of Asia in the last year while dumping large amounts of rain on South America.

Over the last few weeks satellite pictures had shown a dramatic increase in the number of fires in Kalimantan, and a dense cloud many times the size of Singapore had built up, the minister said.