Thin Smog Hits Southern Thailand From IndonesiaBANGKOK, Thailand - A thin blanket of smog from forest fires in Indonesia has reached southern Thailand but the air pollution is unlikely to get as bad as in other Southeast Asian countries, officials said Wednesday.
In the first reports of smoke haze in almost three years, 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.
Air-borne particulate matter of less than 10 microns was measured in Hat Yai Tuesday at 65 micrograms per cubic meter, a level considered safe, an official at the local health department told Reuters.
``It would be considered harmful if it exceeds 120 microgram per cubic meter,'' the official said.
The area's normal particulate level is between 30 and 40.
A spokesman for the meteorological office in Songkhla province said the smog was almost certainly due to smoke blown northwards from the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
Smoke from Sumatra has affected northern Malaysia since Friday.
Thick smog shrouded parts of West Malaysia including the popular tourist resort of Penang over the weekend, stirring memories of 1997, when choking yellow smoke swathed Singapore and Malaysia and cast a pall over the region's tourist industries.
For now, the smoke appeared to be having no impact on the tourist industry in southern Thailand.
A hotel employee at the BP Samila Beach and Resort Hotel in Songkhla said some tourists had asked about the smog but no one had left because of it.
The resort islands of Phuket and Samui are to the north of the affected area.
The pollution comes at a delicate moment, just days before a week-long series of meetings in Bangkok between foreign ministers from the 10-country Association of South East Asian Nations and counterparts from China, Japan, the United States and other major economies.
Thai officials have said they did not foresee any problems given that most of the country had enjoyed clear skies even at the height of the pollution problems in 1997.
But the Songkhla province Meteorological Office warned on Wednesday that as long as Indonesian forest fires remained out of control, the thick haze could come back anytime depending on the strength and direction of the wind.
``There was a strong wind from the Andaman sea overnight which helped blow away some haze from Thailand and, unfortunately, toward Malaysia instead,'' said the Meteorological Office official.
Visibility in most of areas in southern Thailand had improved to around five to eight km (three to five miles) from around one to 1.8 km a couple of days ago, the official said.