Researchers say a thick, smoky haze caused by man-made forest fires in Indonesia is the likely cause of more than 100,000 premature deaths in the country, as well as neighboring Malaysia and Singapore.
The Indonesian government said it's working hard to put out the fires that people and companies have set to clear the land and neighboring countries should be more sympathetic.
Dense haze produced by Indonesian forest fires has caused some of the worst pollution levels in southern Thailand for a decade, officials said Thursday, delaying flights in an area popular with tourists.
Two Russian Beriev Be-200 amphibian aircraft arrived in Indonesia on Wednesday to participate in the international operation to extinguish wildfires on the islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan, Russia’s embassy in Jakarta has said.
Australia is to send a giant water-bombing aircraft and highly trained advisers to help Indonesia combat forest fires that have covered parts of SE Asia in a thick haze.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo said authorities target to put out forest fires burning in parts of the country in two weeks, with the help of other countries.
Indonesia's president said on Thursday he had asked Singapore, Russia, Malaysia and Japan for help to put out fires that have sent choking smoke drifting across the region for weeks.
Indonesian officials clarified that they had enough resources and did
not need to call on assistance offered by Singapore to deal with haze at
this time during the meeting with Singaporean delegates, said
Singapore's Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources (MEWR) on
Friday.
The number of hot spot in Indonesia's forest fire scaled up in Riau province of Sumatra, the hardest hit area, on Monday, in part due to fresh acts of burning, as more than 75,000 people are affected, official said on Monday.
Smog from forest fires in Indonesia on Tuesday prompted the cancelation
of flights and warnings for people to stay indoors, while pushing air
quality to unhealthy levels in neighboring Singapore and Malaysia.
Rescuers have found four large objects in the area of a search for the wreck of a Malaysian AirAsia plane off Indonesia, Indonesia’s Search and Rescue Agency Chief Bambang Soelistyo said on Saturday.
Rescuers have found what supposedly is the fuselage of the AirAsia plane that went missing on December 28 on the Java Sea bottom, a spokesman for the National Search and Rescue Agency of Indonesia said on Wednesday. According to the agency, sonar sea bottom images have shown a large dark object resembling a plane fuselage by its shape. It is supposedly lying at a depth of 25 - 30 metres. However, the image does not clearly show what damage the plane got and if its body is preserved.