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Thick haze disrupts flights at Surabaya, Jambi airports
(Antara/Eric Ireng)Thick haze caused by forest and land fires has disrupted flights at Juanda International Airport in Surabaya, East Java, and at Sultan Thaha Airport in Jambi, Jambi province
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(Antara/Eric Ireng) (Antara/Eric Ireng)
(Antara/Eric Ireng)
Thick haze caused by forest and land fires has disrupted flights at Juanda International Airport in Surabaya, East Java, and at Sultan Thaha Airport in Jambi, Jambi province.
On Monday, at least three Citilink and Lion Air flights departing Surabaya for Palangkaraya in Central Kalimantan were delayed for more than seven hours.
A spokesperson for state-owned airport operator PT Angkasa Pura I, Liza Anindya, told tempo.co on Monday evening that forest fires in Palangkaraya had disrupted activity at Juanda airport since Saturday, including flights to Banjarmasin in South Kalimantan, Balikpapan in East Kalimantan and Lombok in West Nusa Tenggara.
According to a report by Antara news agency on Tuesday, activity at Jambi's Sultan Thaha Airport was also disrupted.
"We had to cancel water bombing operations by two of our helicopters due to limited visibility, which was down to 600 meters horizontally and 90 meters vertically yesterday. Today, there will be no commercial flight operations at the Sultan Thaha Airport, which [means cancellation of] 18 flight arrivals and 18 departures," said head of the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) Sutopo Purwo Nugroho on Tuesday as quoted by Antara news agency.
He added that the agency plans to use a helipad owned by PT Wirakarya Sakti, a pulpwood supplier for Asia Pulp and Paper, which has better visibility than the Sultan Thaha Airport.
On land, the BNPB currently heads fire-fighting operations in the regencies of Muaro Jambi, West Tanjung Jabung and East Tanjung Jabung.
"One of the challenges for land operations is the difficulty of finding sources of water. In the Jebus area, for example, we had to use an excavator to construct water trenches. Our equipment is also limited," said Sutopo.
Sutopo added that the Jambi Health Agency had distributed 22,400 face masks in affected regencies and cities and that the Plantation Agency had urged plantation firms to support and collaborate with the taskforce team to extinguish the fires.
Based on data from the Modis satellite on Monday at 5 a.m., there are still up to 413 and 170 hot spots in Sumatra overall and Jambi respectively. (kes)(++++)
