Jakarta Globe 2 Jul 13;
Lamiem Purba had already stopped breathing by the time the search party found her laying with her husband in a muddy irrigation canal near their Rokan Hilir plantation.
The couple was found holding each other in the canal as the fires burning through the Riau closed in, blanketing their Sumatran village in a thick layer of choking gray smoke that would remain for weeks. It was June 18, the early days of a blaze that would later grow to engulf more than 850 hectares of land in the worst forest fires to strike Indonesia in more than a decade.
They were found by their son, a man who, concerned by their absence and the spreading flames, organized a small search party to find his parents, according to reports in Indonesian media.
Johan Purba, 20, walked across the charred remains of his family’s plantation, stepping on embers and searching the dark smog for his parents. Tears, he said, glistened in his eyes as he scoured the grounds, looking for his family after they returned to the farm in a last-ditch effort to save some of the harvest from the flames.
Johan found his mother dead in a ditch, her arms wrapped around her husband Dulsani. The son leaned forward and whispered “Allah” in his mother’s ear, trying to rouse her stiff body. Johan used a wet rag to wipe the soot from his father’s face as the 49-year-old man mouthed “Astagfirullah” (“God forgive me”) in a breathless refrain, his voice small and hollow, according to local media.
Dulsani was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he died eight days later of complications from smoke inhalation. It was June 25 and newspapers carried headlines of the death of an asthmatic woman in Malaysia. Indonesia was deeply involved in this year’s blame game with Singapore and Malaysia as the countries’ leaders traded diplomatic barbs while the smog obscured Kuala Lumpur’s iconic Petronas Twin Towers and left Singapore shrouded in a milky haze.
It was two weeks until the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) released a report mentioning their deaths. The story was lost amid the firestorm of news coverage, much of it focused on the ensuing political theater as neighbors with a long-standing history of rocky relations jumped at the chance to lob complaints across the border.
We read about the air quality in Malaysia. The impact of the haze on Singapore’s squeaky-clean image. The status of a long-stalled treaty on slash-and-burn land clearing.
Somewhere along the line we lost touch with Riau.
The deaths warranted a brief write-up by Malaysia’s state-run news agency Bernama after Dulsani died. Indonesia’s own state-run news wire, Antara News Agency, ran a similar report. The Jakarta Globe devoted 51 words to Lamiem’s death based on early information obtained over the phone from a public official, much of which proved to be wrong.
The local affiliate the Pekanbaru Tribun was seemingly one of the few media outlets to visit the hospital before Dulsani died. Much of this piece’s information has been gleaned from that first story.
This is the story for much of Riau, a region hit hardest by the fires but overshadowed by the haze. Here’s what we know: the blaze left two dead, 51 hospitalized and some 16,000 with respiratory and skin problems, according to a report released by the BNPB late last night. An additional 39,000 masks have been distributed to the residents of Riau, the agency reported.
Hundreds of hectares of land burned, leaving heavy-hit areas like Rokan Hilir and Bengkalis a scarred landscape of scorched twigs and smoking earth. There were only seven hotspots reported in Sumatra on Tuesday, down from the 264 recorded at the height of the blaze after thousands of fire fighters soaked the soil for weeks and heavy, artificially triggered rains fell across Riau.
The National Police announced additional arrests on Tuesday, upping the number to 25 as officers worked to round-up those allegedly responsible for sparking the initial fires under the gaze of international condemnation. Eight palm oil companies are also under investigation, but it remains to be seen whether any were actually involved in setting the fires.
“One suspect lives on [land owned by] a company, but whether or not the company was involved, we’re still investigating it,” National Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Hilman Thayid said.
The haze has receded in Singapore. Twenty-four hour air quality measured 31-37 PSI on Tuesday, according to the National Environment Agency. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations is pushing for Indonesia to ratify the neglected treaty at a regional meeting in Brunei while response teams in Riau prepared to move on to other affected areas in Sumatra, Jambi and Kalimantan on Tuesday. The story, it seems, is drawing to a close.
But for people like Johan or the thousands of others in Riau who lost their crops, their homes or their health, the impact of this year’s forest fires will likely be felt long after the ground cools.
Riau hit by haze-related infections
Straits Times 3 Jul 13;
PEKANBARU - The heavy haze that has engulfed Riau for weeks may have started to fade but the region's problems are far from over.
The disaster has left an estimated 10,400 residents suffering from acute respiratory infections.
About half the patients were reportedly children under five years old, the Riau Health Agency said.
Its disease control and environmental health head Tengku Zul Effendi said the number may rise as it covered only eight of the 12 regencies and cities across Riau.
The number of people suffering from the infections has risen steadily since June 18, 10 days after the haze started to blanket the province.
"This number really raises our concerns," said Mr Zul. "Parents need to keep their children indoors while the haze is still around."
The haze has also been blamed for asthma attacks in 699 people and for triggering pneumonia in 708 others. As many as 538 people suffered from skin irritations, while 622 had eye irritations.
"A mixture of haze and post- fire dust residue has contributed to skin and eye irritations," Mr Zul said, adding that the administration would pay for the treatment of haze-related illnesses.
"These are relatively minor diseases and are directly due to the haze. But they have to be treated immediately to prevent further infections."
The agency has distributed 120,000 masks across 12 regencies and cities since the haze hit the province, as well as providing an additional 170,000 masks.
Land and forest fires have for years been a major problem for Riau as smallholders and plantation firms allow slash-and-burn farming methods.
Mr Martinho Pinto, of the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry police in Riau, said it would take time to sort out responsibility in each district of the provinces for slash- and-burn clearing.
"We're still investigating, so give us time," he said shortly before his team located a burning hillside near Pontain Mekar village. "We're not sure if it's the companies or the communities."
"No one wants to take responsibility, or to tell who did it," said Mr Afdhal Mahyuddin, a researcher with Eyes on the Forest, a coalition of non-governmental organisations in Riau that focuses on environmental issues.
As the crisis begins to wind down, the Indonesian authorities are shifting their focus to assigning responsibility for the disaster. Environment Minister Balthasar Kambuaya said that the government had identified 14 companies believed to have started fires.
"There's a total lack of law enforcement in regard to the plantations and concessions," said Mr Afdhal. "The Ministry of Forestry has failed to stop it, so you have encroachment by illegal farmers, as well as companies setting fires to clear land."
THE JAKARTA POST/ASIA NEWS NETWORK, NEW YORK TIMES
