Indonesia Fires Spread, Smog Reaches ThailandIndonesia has played down fears of a re-run of the health crisis of 1997, when smog from illegal Indonesian fires cast a pall over much of Southeast Asia, but also admitted there is no strategy for putting the fires out.
The head of the Environmental Impact Management Agency in Riau province, T.M. Alamsyah, warned that smog triggered had reached an alarming level in Riau and other Sumatran provinces.
``We have found 163 fire spots in Riau alone as of Monday. Now, fire spots are also being detected in the provinces of North Sumatra, Jambi and Lampung,'' Alamsyah said.
Antung Deddy of the Environmental Management Agency said evacuations may be necessary in some areas along the border of Riau and North Sumatra because pollution had reached very dangerous levels.
``The ISPU (air pollution index) reached 397 Saturday. That means that residents must get ready to wear masks. If rains do not fall in the next few days and there are no signs of the fires subsidizing, we may have to evacuate the residents,'' Deddy said.
Officials and activists blame plantation firms, which use slash-and-burn techniques banned under environmental laws to clear land, for the fires.
More than five million hectares (12.35 million acres) of forest, plantation and other land in Indonesia were destroyed by fires in 1997.
A thin layer of the Sumatra smog had reached southern Thailand, officials said Wednesday.
The Thai meteorological office said air quality and visibility had deteriorated in the southern provinces of Songkhla, Narathiwat, Yala and Pattani over the last week.
Residents in the southern town of Hat Yai reported reduced visibility since early this week.
A spokesman for the meteorological office in Songkhla said the smog was almost certainly due to smoke from Sumatra.
The resort islands of Phuket and Samui are to the north of the affected area.
Smog over north Malaysia began to clear Wednesday leaving just one area registering unhealthy levels of air quality.
Three northern states, including the resort island of Penang, have been swathed in smoke since Friday but on Wednesday reported that air quality levels were no longer unhealthy, environmental officials said. ``As of today, Taiping is the only place in the peninsula which is declared unhealthy,'' said an official at the department of environment in Kuala Lumpur.
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad urged environment ministers from Southeast Asia to meet to resolve the problem.
``There are ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) ministers on haze and they should talk to each other,'' Mahathir told reporters.
Officials from the Olympic Council of Asia are visiting Malaysia to consider its bid to host the 2006 Asian Games and government officials said they privately feared the smog could ruin Malaysia's chances.
In neighboring Singapore, Wang Mong Lin, spokesman for the Ministry of Environment, told a news conference that the city state may be hit if the Sumatra fires continue and the winds change to a more westerly direction.