Australia will join the nation’s waterbombing operations to help put out fires that have been raging for months, a government agency said, a day after a helicopter crashed during a firefighting mission, killing three people.
Australia’s New South Wales Rural Fire Service has dispatched a C-130 Hercules and a Cessna Citation aircraft to support Indonesia in firefighting operations starting today until Nov 12, Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency said yesterday.
Australia’s ambassador to Indonesia, Roderick Bruce Brazier, said the support includes a Large Air Tanker aircraft capable of dropping up to 15,000 litres of water per sortie, with an estimated capacity of up to six sorties per day.
Indonesia has been battling its most intense wildfires in 11 years, with large swathes of land scorched, mainly on the islands of Sumatra, Borneo and Papua.
An Indonesian waterbombing helicopter crashed on Wednesday in Central Kalimantan, killing three crew and injuring several others, an environment ministry department said yesterday.
The helicopter was carrying eight crew and crashed while loading water, according to the transport ministry.
Fire and haze has caused more than 400,000 cases of acute respiratory infections in seven Indonesian provinces as of Nov 2, Health Ministry data showed.
Indonesia is making “massive efforts” to control the fires though waterbombing and cloud seeding operations while engaging foreign assistance, its disaster agency chief Kristomei Sianturi said. — Reuters
