by Lee Jia Xin
AR quality in Singapore hit the unhealthy range on Thursday
afternoon, a day after the pollution index hit the highest level
since 2006 on Wednesday.
The three-hour Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) recording climbed
to 102 as at 5pm, much higher than the 80 on Wednesday, which was
the worst recording since 2006 when Singapore was last blanketed by
a severe haze.
The air pollution was worse in the southern and western parts of
Singapore than the north, east and central parts.
The National Environment Agency (NEA) warned on Wednesday that
the smoke, due to foreign fires on the Indonesian island of
Sumatra, is expected to remain in the eye until at least
Saturday.
Over in Malaysia, many areas continued to be shrouded in haze
although the pollution level in Muar and Malacca were substantially
lower on Thursday.
Still public concern is building up, prompting Kuala Lumpur to
write to Jarkata to express its concern over the recurring
situation.
Over 200 schools in Muar closed on Thursday due to the thick
haze, affecting thousands of students. Ddistrict officials have
reactivated a disaster relief committee and set up a haze
monitoring operations room.
Malaysia also alerted vessels in the Malacca Strait of poor
visibility as short as 2 nautical miles.
In the Indonesian province of Riau, feasibility was cut to
between 3 to 4 km, form the normal range of over 10 km.
Purwasto Saroprayogi, head of the land and forest fires
department at Indonesia's Environment Ministry, told Reuters that
the haze was caused by fires lit to clear land illegally in Dumai
and Bengkalis districts in Riau province, in the north of Sumatra
island.
The haze returned to the region less than a week after
environment ministers in South-east Asia met in Brunei to address
land and forest fires, which drew immediate flak from
neighbours.
