TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Worsening smog kills two in Sumatra
Two residents, with a history of asthma, have died in Jambi as smog and haze have continued to shroud provinces in Sumatra and Kalimantan
Change Size
T
span>Two residents, with a history of asthma, have died in Jambi as smog and haze have continued to shroud provinces in Sumatra and Kalimantan.
A resident of East Tanjungjabung regency, Ambo Tang, 55, and another resident from Muarojambi regency, Hanifah, 57, passed away from asthma on Sept. 21, after breathing the haze for weeks.
"My mother had a history of asthma, but the smog had worsened her condition," Hanifah's son, Muhammad, said.
Hanifah's village of Mekar Sari in the Kumpeh Ilir subdistrict was located close to burning spots.
Ambo's daughter, Diana, said that her father also had a history of asthma. Both Ambo and Hanifah were sent to nearby health centers before they were pronounced dead.
Jambi, one of the haze-hit regions in Sumatra, saw artificial rain for 15 minutes on Tuesday morning after prolonged dry season hit the region for months.
The rain, however, did not do much difference to the city's air quality, which was recorded at 374 or "hazardous" by the United States Air Quality Index (US AQI) on Tuesday evening.
Residents, some of whom were overjoyed by the moderate rain, still opted to wear respirator masks while outdoors.
There have been no official records of haze-related casualties, but the the latest deaths in the Sumatra province added to an earlier passing of a four-month-infant in South Sumatra due to pneumonia and meningitis.Thousand others have been treated at health centers due to respiratory-related illnesses in the affected provinces.
The National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) said that artificial rain operations had yielded moderate to heavy rain in a number of areas across Sumatra and Kalimantan, although it commonly lasted within 30 minutes.
According to the agency, among those having seen rain from the operations between Sept. 18 and Tuesday aside from Jambi were Riau, South Sumatra, Central Kalimantan, West Kalimantan and South Kalimantan.
Tri Handoko Seto, head of Weather Modification Technology (TMC) Agency of the the Assessment and Application of Technology Agency (BPPT), which oversees the making of artificial rain, claimed that the rain had produced around 70 million cubic meters of water in a number of areas in West Kalimantan.
On Monday, the BNPB recorded that rain had poured down in Bengkayang, Mempawah, several subdistricts of Sambas regency and Pontianak in West Kalimantan.
In Riau, he added, rain had produced around 30 million cubic meters of water. The BNPB previously recorded that rain was observed in Dumai, Siak, Meranti Islands and Bengkalis in the province.
"In Central Kalimantan, since [Sept. 20], there has been quite significant rain in Palangkaraya and Pulang Pisau. Up until today [Tuesday], around 15 million cubic meters of water has been produced, and this amount is not capable of significantly dousing the fires and easing the smog," Seto told reporters in Jakarta on Tuesday.
Seto said potential clouds had started to appear since Friday in a number of areas across Sumatra and Kalimantan, adding that one more aircraft would be deployed to scatter salt and calcium oxide to create the rain starting on Wednesday. In total, five aircrafts are deployed to create the man-made rain, marking the highest number of aircraft deployment for such operations during the fires.
"In such severe forest and land fires, we all agree that the only way to put a stop to it is with natural rain," Seto said.
Officials have admitted that water bombing efforts, which involved 238 million liters of water, were not enough to douse fires, especially in the peatland areas. The BNPB, citing data of fire spots analyzed from the Global Forest Watch Fires between Aug. 1 and Sept. 14, said that 39 percent of fire alerts were located in peatland.
Two airports in North Sumatra, namely Ferdinand Lumbantobing airport in Central Tapanuli regency and Aek Godang airport in North Padang Lawas regency, remained closed on Tuesday as smog mainly coming from Riau continued to persist in the region, making the visibility at 2,000 meters and 700 meters in respective airports.
Normal visibility for flights should have been at 5,000 meters or above, as smog disrupted airport activities and forced flights to be cancelled.
