The nation has intensified efforts to fight wildfires with cloud seeding and water bombing as thousands of people countrywide battle to breathe in the smoke and haze, officials said.
More than five million people on the Borneo and Sumatra islands were directly exposed to the risks of a putrid haze coming off dozens of fires across the vast archipelago, according to deputy health minister Dante Saksono Harbuwono.
Some 13,500 people were treated for respiratory infections in July and August, Dante said.
Several schools had been closed intermittently and the haze has also made people in Singapore and Malaysia unwell.
“Vulnerable groups that must be evaluated are children, the elderly, pregnant women with asthma and outdoor workers,” Dante said.
NGOs have set up two shelters in Palangkaraya, the capital of Central Kalimantan on Borneo island, for babies and children affected by the haze, with more planned.
The shelters, which can accommodate only five children at a time, were equipped with baby formula and oxygen tanks, medicines, and a playground.
Dante said prolonged exposure to toxic air can cause serious longer-term health complications.
He said the ministry has distributed more than five million masks across Indonesia – a country of 289 million people dealing with the effects of a super-charged El Nino weather event dubbed “Godzilla”.
Disaster agency BNPB said on Friday the government has intensified efforts to battle wildfires, with some success.
“Cloud seeding remains one of the measures to support efforts to tackle forest and land fires. Its implementation depends heavily on atmospheric conditions and the presence of rain-bearing clouds in the target areas,” BNPB spokesman Berton Suar Pelita Panjaitan said.
“However, cloud seeding is not the only effort, because the ground and air task forces continue working in the field to carry out extinguishing and cooling operations,” he said.
The agency said it has poured more than four million litres of water on burning areas in the recent weeks, and on Wednesday alone it scattered more than 8,000kg of salt onto clouds.
Such operations this week succeeded in prompting light to moderate rains over east and south Sumatra and west Kalimantan, Berton said. — AFP
