Fire Haze Crisis in Indonesia Raises Concerns Over Public Health
Millions of Indonesians are at risk of health complications from thick haze blanketing several cities and towns, officials said Wednesday, as wildfires intensified by El Nino continue to spread across Borneo and Sumatra.
Indonesia has spent weeks battling wildfires that have forced school closures and left thousands of people needing medical treatment, with smoke drifting as far as neighboring Malaysia and Singapore. The health ministry said 3.4 million people across seven provinces on Borneo and Sumatra are at risk of respiratory infections due to the ongoing exposure.
In Pekanbaru, the capital of Sumatra’s Riau province, thick smog prompted the government to close dozens of schools and urge residents to remain indoors. “The smog gets thicker at night, making Pekanbaru almost like a dead city. A lot of people don’t dare go out. And if they do, they wear masks,” said Abdullah, a 38-year-old entrepreneur, who described stinging eyes and the sensation of breathing in smoke from burning trash whenever he steps outside.
In Jambi, also on Sumatra, homemaker Farida, 31, said the haze had already taken a toll on her family’s health, with both her four-year-old child and herself developing persistent coughing and breathing difficulties, especially after spending time outdoors. Local authorities in Jambi have ordered home schooling for kindergarten and elementary students for the rest of the week.
The health ministry said it has distributed more than 260,000 face masks to residents in the hardest-hit areas. President Prabowo Subianto said Tuesday that the government has deployed dozens of helicopters and aircraft, along with water pumps and thousands of personnel, to fight the blazes. “Now I think it has begun to be brought under control, mitigated. In several places, I believe, and I hope that within the next one to two weeks everything can be resolved,” he said.
Most of the fires are attributed to slash-and-burn land-clearing practices used for farming. Police said over the weekend they had arrested 72 people suspected of starting fires. Between January and July, fires burned more than 200,000 hectares of land — an area three times the size of Jakarta, according to government figures released last week, already surpassing totals from previous El Nino seasons in 2019 and 2023.
The El Nino weather pattern is known to trigger widespread shifts in wind, atmospheric pressure, and rainfall globally. On Tuesday, Muslims across Indonesia marking the birth of the Prophet Muhammad offered prayers for rain.
Malaysia has said it stands ready to assist with firefighting efforts. Poor air quality in Malaysia’s Sarawak state, which shares Borneo with Indonesia and Brunei, led to the closure of nearly 600 schools last week. At one point Wednesday morning, air quality tracker IQ Air ranked Kuala Lumpur as the second-most polluted city in the world.
Also Read:
Sezane Taps Imaan Hammam for Its Latest Autumn Fashion Campaign
Foreign Policy Challenges Mount for Trump Ahead of Midterm Elections
