F

eeling frustrated with the unbeaten smoky haze crisis in their hometown, Palangkaraya residents have started to abandon the Central Kalimantan provincial capital, temporarily leaving their spouses, jobs and properties in search of fresh air.

After struggling to survive the prolonged haze crisis for the past several weeks, Nurhayati, who lives in Jekan Raya district, Palangkaraya, finally gave up after she had recently rushed her 2-year-old daughter to a local hospital because of a severe cough.

With approval from her husband, a member of the local Indonesian Military (TNI), the mother of three packed her luggage on Saturday and took her children to her cousin'€™s house in the South Kalimantan city of Banjarbaru, located some 200 kilometers southeast of Palangkaraya.

'€œThe smoke has become too dangerous for my children. I have no other choice except taking them out of town immediately,'€ the 22-year-old housewife told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

Nurhayati, however, said she must leave her husband in Palangkaraya, as military personnel in the province have been deployed to support the government'€™s efforts to extinguish extensive forest and peat land fires in the region, which has become the source of pollution that has blanketed Palangkaraya and surrounding regions over the past two months.

Thirty-two-year-old Kartika Sari, another Palangkaraya resident, shared a similar story.

An employee of a pharmaceutical company, Kartika recently decided to take unpaid leave to bring her 3-year-old daughter to Banjarmasin, the South Kalimantan provincial capital.

Kartika said she had actually wanted to bring her daughter out of town since earlier this month upon learning that the level of air quality in Palangkaraya stood at extremely hazardous levels, but refrained from doing so since she had no relatives in Banjarmasin.

Over the past few months, Indonesia has been struggling to anticipate the impacts of air pollution haze originating from fires in peat land and plantations in Sumatra and Kalimantan. The ongoing haze crisis has also been exacerbated by this year'€™s prolonged dry season that has been triggered by the El Niño weather phenomenon.

Among the country'€™s affected regions, Palangkaraya has so far become the worst with the average daily concentration of particulate matter (PM10) in the city standing at above 1,000 micrograms per cubic meter (µg/m3) over the past couple of weeks.

Authorities consider air quality '€œgood'€ if its PM10 concentration stands below 50 µg/m3 and '€œhazardous'€ when it surpasses 350 µg/m3.

On Saturday, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) revealed that the haze had caused more than 500,000 people in six provinces '€” Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra, West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan and South Kalimantan '€” to suffer from acute respiratory infections (ISPA).

In Pekanbaru, Riau, at least three people have died due to respiratory failure allegedly triggered by the haze that has been blanketing the province for almost two months.

Meanwhile in West Sumatra, the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency'€™s (BMKG) Padang station on Saturday reported that the province'€™s Minangkabau International Airport (BIM) had become the only airport operating in the central part of the island, as haze had reduced visibility in Medan in North Sumatra, Palembang in South Sumatra and Jambi to below 400 meters.

'€œVisibility in all airports in the three cities stands below the minimum [safety] requirement. All have been closed except BIM,'€ said the station'€™s spokesperson, Budi Iman Samiaji.