Thick smoke blankets Pekanbaru

Thick smoke blankets Pekanbaru

PEKANBARU, Riau: Only two days after haze dispersed from the skies over Riau, thick smoke came back to enshroud the provincial capital of Pekanbaru again on Friday, increasing the city's temperature, and causing blurred vision and smarting of the eyes.

"Can we never learn from previous experiences?" asked Denny, a local resident who complained of respiratory problems when waking up in the morning.

Andi Chandra, an official of the local environmental control agency, said the air pollution was caused by fires that had been ravaging 370 hectares of forests in several regencies in Riau.

He said his office had detected at least 71 hot spots scattered across the regencies of Bengkalis, Kampar, Indragiri Hilir and Dumai.

Andi added that the CO content in Dumai has hit 16 milligrams, well above the permissible of 10 mg level. --Antara