Strong Borneo wind brings back the haze up north

Searing heat and haze: An angler fishing under the hot sun at the Esplanade with the North Butterworth Container Terminal shrouded in haze. — ZHAFARAN NASIB/The Star

GEORGE TOWN: A strong Borneo wind blowing east to west – over 1,600km away – is bringing up smoke from more than 20 detected forest fires in West Kalimantan into the Southwest Monsoon and towards northern Malaysia.

And this will continue for the next few days, according to Asean Specialised Meteorological Centre’s (ASMC) Regional Haze Situation Analysis yesterday.

ASMC’s satellite has so far registered 22 hotspots in West Kali­mantan and four in Sumatra as at Monday.

Wind current readings show that Kalimantan’s smoke was pushed into the southern end of the Straits of Malacca before the Southwest Monsoon took over and blew it northerly all along Peninsular Malaysia.

The Department of Environment’s Air Pollution Index (API) for Penang yesterday was between 68 and 71 in the state’s four gauges.

Even Langkawi was not spared, with a reading of 53.

The archipelago’s API was in the mild 30s early this month when the haze started worsening in Penang.

The only API gauge in the country returning a good reading was in Tawau, Sabah, at 33.

Readings for Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya were ranging from 59 to 74.

Last week, northern Malaysia had a brief respite from the haze and a tropical storm called Bebinca ravaged Vietnam with winds that exceeded 95kph.

The storm’s influence gave the region storm clouds from Andaman Sea in the west, diverting Indonesia’s haze away from the northern states.