Indonesian forest fires haze Malaca

Illegal forest clearing fires on Indonesia's Sumatra Island are sending haze across the Malacca Strait to neighboring Malaysia and Singapore, causing the worst air pollution since 2006, officials said Thursday.

Despite a pledge among governments to deter fires, the haze prompted Malaysia to alert vessels in the Malacca Strait of poor visibility as short as 2 nautical miles (3.7 kilometers) and to shut many schools.

Singapore, covered in thick smoke this week, saw its three-hour Pollutant Standards Index rise to an "unhealthy" range of 108 as of 6 pm Thursday, much higher than 80 Wednesday, which was the worst since 2006.

"The suspicion is that this is coming from forests that have been opened up for plantations. We think it may be for palm oil," said Purwasto Saroprayogi, head of the land and forest fires department at Indonesia's Environment Ministry.

Fires clear land quickly and reduce the acidity of peat land soil, but they release vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the air.

The haze returned to the region less than a week after environment ministers in Southeast Asia met in Brunei to address land and forest fires.

Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said Kuala Lumpur was seeking "more cooperation" from Jakarta in tackling the haze problem.

If the haze worsens, "we will register our concerns again, perhaps on even stronger terms, to our Indonesian colleagues," Singaporean Environmental Minister Yaacob Ibrahim said Wednesday.

Reuters