JAKARTA (The Straits Times/Asia News Network): Several provinces in Sumatra and Kalimantan have been blanketed with haze from raging forest fires that worsened in August, causing a surge in people with respiratory ailments such as sore throat and shortness of breath.
The Indonesian authorities are deploying ground patrols, water bombing and cloud seeding to stem fires in forests with large areas of peatland, Dr Abdul Muhari, a spokesman for the National Disaster Management Agency , told The Straits Times.
Peatlands are highly flammable, and the fires are harder to extinguish as they can keep burning underground for weeks, especially in deep areas, producing a thick, choking smog. “There has been around a 20 per cent increase in the number of patients with respiratory diseases since the fires and smoke intensified,” Dr Dini told ST. “The air quality has been very unhealthy.”
He added that the agency is also paying more attention to Aceh, West Sumatra and East Kalimantan provinces, where there was a significant uptick in hot spots and fire incidents in the past two months. “So far, they were all manageable. But we don’t know what will happen in the future,” the 49-year old father of three told ST. “The most important thing is to prevent fires from entering the forest because when that occurs, they will be very hard to extinguish.”
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