H

aze shrouding Sumatra continues to thicken and spread, disrupting flights and posing a threat to human health on the island.

The smog has been causing major problems at Hang Nadim International Airport in Batam, Riau Islands, which claims to have suffered losses of Rp 140 million (US$10,000) over the past week as a result of disruptions to flights to and from the mainland.

Hang Nadim'€™s general division head Suwarso said on Thursday that 35 flights had been either canceled or delayed because of haze since the previous Friday.

'€œWe receive Rp 4 million from every aircraft that lands at the airport, so we'€™ve lost around Rp 140 million because of the haze,'€ Suwarso told The Jakarta Post.

The problem, he said, had caused at least five flights from mainland cities such as Jambi, Pekanbaru, Palembang, Lampung and Medan to Hang Nadim to be canceled each day.

In North Sumatra, the management of Kualanamu International Airport reported that haze had caused 20 flight cancellations on Thursday.

Kualanamu duty manager Jasirin said the flights had been canceled because the haze coming from neighboring provinces was very thick, reducing visibility to 800 meters.

'€œTo prevent accidents, we call on airlines not to force themselves to operate in thick haze,'€ Jasirin said.

Almost all regions in North Sumatra, including Binjai on the border with Aceh, are now covered in haze thought to have drifted from Jambi and Riau provinces.

'€œAll of central Binjai is blanketed in thick haze. It'€™s very disturbing,'€ city transportation driver Razman told the Post on Thursday.

Low visibility caused by thick haze has also brought the local airport in Riau to a standstill.

The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency'€™s (BMKG) Pekanbaru station reported that Pekanbaru city and Pelalawan regency were suffering exceptionally low visibility of 200 meters as of 7 a.m. on Thursday.

As of Thursday afternoon, only two flights had taken off from Sultan Syarif Kasim II International Airport (SSK II) in Pekanbaru.

Crowds of passengers began to amass at the airport as Citilink and other airlines announced the cancellation of all their regularflights.

For safety reasons, at least 15 flights from a number of cities across Indonesia destined for SSK II airport were canceled indefinitely. Previously on Wednesday, 14 flights were delayed for over four hours for the same reason.

Smog was similarly blanketing almost the entirety of West Sumatra province on Thursday, moving boy and girl scouts (Pramuka) in Sawahlunto city to take to the streets to distribute pollution masks to passersby after the local administration failed to do so.

'€œWe only have 500 masks to distribute. They go pretty quickly, as many motorcycle taxi drivers ask for one. They'€™re worried the haze will make them ill,'€ the deputy chairman of Pramuka'€™s Sawahlunto branch, Tumpak Abdurrahman, told the Post on Thursday.

- Rizal Harahap in Pekanbaru and Syofiardi Bachyul Jb in Padang contributed to this story.