Fire haze travel chaos in Indonesia
Poor visibility as a result of smoke from forest land-clearing fires has resulted in authorities in Indonesia closing several airports yesterday, potentially stranding millions of travellers at the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when about 14 million people are expected to travel by road, air and sea during an annual exodus from major cities to rural villages to mark the end of fasting.
Closing three regional airports with visibility only about 100 metres due to the fires Transport Minister Hatta Radjasa said that flight cancellations and delays also were reported at airports on Borneo and Sumatra islands.
The fires have raged for more than two months, shrouding much of western Indonesia and neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore with smoke, beginning to spread smoke across much of Southeast Asia and beginning to trigger fears of a repeat of the environmental disaster in 1997/8 when dry conditions linked to the El Nino weather pattern caused a choking haze that cost the region billions of dollars in economic losses.
The Indonesian Government has appealed for funds and equipment from Singapore and Malaysia.
At Sultan Thaha airport in Sumatra’s Jambi province, 630 km northwest of Jakarta, all flights were cancelled this week, with the Airport Manager saying that it is not possible to fly at the moment, with visibility terribly limited. He added that the minimum should be 1,800 to 2,000 metres but now, it is under 100 metres with heavy rain when the dry season ends the only potential resolution to the problem.
Indonesia’s six-month rainy season usually starts in October but it may come late this year in many areas, although rain has started but is localised and low intensity, with low intensity only adding moisture above hotspots, especially those in peat land, automatically causing more smoke said Remus Lumban Tobing, head of Jambi’s Weather Office, adding that peat fires are hard to put out and can burn for months with the the pessimistic view that there will be a long wait until there is high intensity of rain with his prediction being November.
Environment Ministers from Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Brunei failed to reach agreement regarding a plan when they met last week in Indonesia’s Riau province on Sumatra Island to discuss the crisis.
Report by The Mole
John Alwyn-Jones
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