Haze blanketing West Sumatra due to forest fires in Riau and other provinces disrupted flights at Minangkabau International Airport in Padangpariaman on Thursday
aze blanketing West Sumatra due to forest fires in Riau and other provincesdisrupted flights at Minangkabau International Airportin Padangpariaman onThursday.
Two incoming airplanes had to return to their points of departure as visibility reached only 700 meters at the airport, Joko Sudarmanto, head of the airport's operations division, said as reported by Antara news agency.
Joko explained that an AirAsia
plane was forced to return to Kuala
Lumpur and a Citilink plane to Batam.
"There was no rain around the hotspots, thereby causing dense haze,
especially in the morning," said Padangpariaman Climatology and Geophysics
Agency (BMKG) analyst Yuni Fitria,
"However, the haze could immediately disperse if rainfall doused the
hotspots," she said.
She also urged motorists to be extra careful when driving and to drive with the
headlights on when there was limited visibility.
Separately, a Padang
resident, Rudik, said, "I had to turn on my motorcycle headlights because
the haze was denser than usual." (yln)
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