[Kabar-indonesia] update: Smoke From Land-Clearing Fires Covers Western Indonesia

[JoyoNews at aol.com]

Smoke From Land-Clearing Fires Covers Western Indonesia

JAKARTA, Oct. 2 (AP)--Smoke and ash from land-clearing fires in Indonesia 
blanketed a large swath of the country's west on Monday, forcing residents to 
wear protective masks, sending air quality plummeting and delaying flights, 
officials and media reports said. 

Skies were also hazy in neighboring Singapore due to the fires, a media 
report there said. 

The smoke was shrouding an estimated 556,000 square kilometers of land on the 
western islands of Sumatra and Borneo, officials and media reports said. 

"The haze has persisted for a whole week," said Frans Tandipau, a senior 
official tasked with extinguishing forest fires on Sumatra island. 

Fires from land-clearing activities in Sumatra and Borneo islands, and to a 
lesser extent Malaysia, have occurred almost every dry season since the late 
1990s. They are typically set by people looking for a cheap way to clear brush 
for plantations. 

In Palangkaraya, on Kalimantan on the Indonesian side of Borneo island, many 
people were wearing face masks, residents there said. Flights in and out of 
airports were delayed early Monday when the haze was at its worse. 

Air quality levels had reached "dangerous" levels, from "unhealthy" last 
week, according to a monitoring station in Palangkaraya, state news agency Antara 
reported. 

Indonesia has been often criticized by its neighbors for not tackling the 
problem. 

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has vowed to crack down on landowners who 
set fires illegally, but inefficient and corrupt local authorities are 
apparently unable or unwilling to stamp out the problem. 

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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