Indonesia planning cloud seeding to tackle haze that is also affecting Singapore

Wahyudi Soeriaatmadja Straits Times 15 Sep 14;

The Indonesian authorities are making plans for cloud seeding operations to extinguish forest and plantation fires in South Sumatra and Riau that have shrouded Singapore in foul-smelling haze yet again.

The fires, which had been raging for days, prompted pollution levels in Singapore to climb to the unhealthy range on Sunday and early Monday morning. The pollution readings have since eased back to moderate levels.

"We are communicating with BNPB (the National Disaster Mitigation Agency) now and will start arrangement to do cloud seeding. BNPB will make the call," Mr Erwin Mulyono, a scientist with Indonesia's Applied Technology Agency (BPPT), which helps to strategise cloud seeding operations, told The Straits Times by telephone.

He added: "We have personnel ready in Pekanbaru and in Palembang right now. The aircraft (for the cloud seeding operation) are in the Halim Air Force base (in Jakarta) today and should soon be deployed there."

Haze over southern and central Sumatra in the past few days has been mostly due to forest and plantation fires in South Sumatra. The wind has been blowing a northeasterly direction over Riau, as is typical for this time of the year, sending the haze in the direction of Singapore and Peninsular Malaysia.

Hourly air quality readings in Malaysia on Monday morning have been either healthy or moderate so far.

Dr Ajisman Syafaat, a lung specialist at the Arifin Achmad state hospital in Pekanbaru, told The Straits Times that the city has been shrouded by a light haze since last Saturday.

"Hopefully the government will do something soon," he said.

In mid-March, Dr Ajisman made an appeal to the Pekanbaru municipal adimistration to evacuate pregnant women, babies and toddlers from the capital of Riau province until conditions return to normal, saying the haze situation was "too dangerous" to health.

The Sultan Thaha Syaifuddin airport in Jambi in the southern part of Sumatra was closed for four hours on Sunday as the visibility level dropped to below 1km, the minimum required for airlines to land safely, according to local online news portal Jambiekspres.co.id.

The weekly weather forecast for Jambi indicates a continued dry spell for the province. Local administration officials appealed to farmers and plantation companies not to do slash-and-burn to clear lands.

Haze from forest and plantation fires also blanketed Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan, on Sunday evening, prompting residents who were outdoors to wear masks, according to Kompas.com, the online news portal owned by Indonesia's largest newspaper. Several flights in Sumatra and Kalimantan have also been disrupted due to haze in recent days.

BNPB has been carrying out water bombing operations using helicopters in affected areas in Sumatra and Kalimantan to contain the spread of fire.

Haze returns here as fires in Indonesia rage
Feng Zengkun, Wahyudi Soeriaatmadja My Paper AsiaOne 16 Sep 14;

That burnt smell, the foggy blanket in the air - your senses have not deceived you: The haze is back in Singapore.

Singapore's National Environment Agency Pollution Standards Index (PSI) readings crossed into the unhealthy range in the early hours of yesterday morning.

The three-hour PSI was 102 at 1am and continued to rise through the night.

By 6am, the PSI hit 113, but fell slightly to 111 at 7am.

The reading tailed off after that and was 66 at 7pm, in the moderate range.

People with chronic lung and heart disease are advised to avoid prolonged or strenuous outdoor physical exertion.

Just last month, Singapore passed a law to punish polluters who cause the haze.

Firms will be fined for each day that they contribute to "unhealthy" haze. Unhealthy haze is defined in the new law as air quality having a PSI value of 101 or greater for 24 hours or more.

Polluting companies may be fined up to $100,000 a day, up to a maximum of $2 million.

The Indonesian authorities are also making plans for cloud-seeding operations to extinguish forest and plantation fires in South Sumatra and Riau that have raged for days and shrouded Singapore in the haze.

Erwin Mulyono - a scientist with Indonesia's Applied Technology Agency, which helps to strategise cloud-seeding operations - told The Straits Times: "We are communicating with BNPB (the National Disaster Mitigation Agency) now and will start arrangements to do cloud seeding. BNPB will make the call."

He added: "We have personnel ready in Pekanbaru and in Palembang right now. The aircraft (for the cloud-seeding operation) were in the Halim Air Force base (in Jakarta) yesterday and should soon be deployed there."

Haze over southern and central Sumatra in the past few days was mostly due to forest and plantation fires in South Sumatra.

The wind has been blowing in a north-easterly direction over Riau, as is typical for this time of the year, sending the haze in the direction of Singapore and the Malaysian peninsula.

Hourly air-quality readings in Malaysia yesterday morning have been either healthy or moderate so far.
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Expect slight haze on Tuesday: NEA
Channel NewsAsia 15 Sep 14;

SINGAPORE: The National Environment Agency (NEA) said to expect occasional slight haze on Monday night (Sep 15). As of 6pm, the 3-hour Pollutant Standard Index (PSI) reading stood at 64, according to the NEA website. This is in the "moderate" band, and down from a high of 113 at 6am on Monday.

However, the 24-hour PSI reading for western parts of Singapore was still in the "unhealthy" range of over 100.

NEA said to expect slightly hazy conditions on Tuesday, with prevailing winds forecast to blow from the southeast or southwest. "Overall air quality for the next 24 hours is expected to fluctuate between the high-end of the 'moderate' range and the low-end of the 'unhealthy' range," NEA stated.

Members of the public started to report a "burning smell" and dropping visibility as early as 7pm on Sunday. NEA said in a statement that levels of PM2.5 were elevated from 10pm on Sunday to 7am on Monday, with mainly the western parts of Singapore affected. This is likely due to hotspots in South Sumatra detected over the past three to four days, it said.

"We haven't noticed any significant jump in hotspots. It's been quite active since the beginning of the month. A large fire that we have been tracking has been burning for at least a week. So the reason why it's affecting air quality in Singapore now is because the previous wind direction did not take the smoke directly to Singapore," explained Mr Chia Aik Song, Associate Scientist with the Centre for Remote Imaging, Sensing and Processing (CRISP) at the National University of Singapore.

However, a check of a website run by Indonesia's National Disaster Mitigation Agency shows there are close to 690 hotspots detected on Monday, mainly in Kalimantan.

NEA has requested an urgent update from Indonesia on the ground situation and measures they are taking to address the hotspots in southern Sumatra. It had already sent a letter to Indonesian authorities on Friday. In response, Indonesia’s Ministry of Environment has informed them that a forest fire control team has been mobilised, and that the Indonesian National Board for Disaster has also sent emergency response teams to the area.

- CNA/ly/ac