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Smoke from fires in Indonesia has blanketed the Southeast Asian region with haze for months, turning cities like Singapore and Kuala Lumpur into the world's most polluted places. Authorities say human-caused fires fueled by El Nino have burned forests and mountains across Indonesia. Facing criticism, the Indonesian president says the fires are shrinking. But the haze levels tell a different story. Naina Rao has the latest from Jakarta.
NAINA RAO, BYLINE: For about a week this month, says Indigenous activist Emmanuela Shinta, the sky over the city of Palangka Raya in Borneo turned yellow-orange every morning. She posted a video of herself on Instagram walking through the city wearing a gas mask, calling it...
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EMMANUELA SHINTA: A gas chamber. Nowhere to hide, nowhere to escape.
RAO: With an air quality index above 300, it's hazardous. Across seven provinces, Indonesia's health ministry has now recorded more than 283,000 acute respiratory infections, about double the count in early September. School librarian Nida Najibah Hanum lives in Borneo, and she's worried.
NIDA NAJIBAH HANUM: (Non-English language spoken).
RAO: She says she hopes this ends soon as she's not sure what the risk is to human health, breathing smoke like this for months. President Prabowo Subianto has ordered deployment of additional firefighters. He also said that authorities have managed to put out the fires from hundreds of thousands of acres to just under 2,400. But his disaster agency and forestry ministry says that figure included only the areas where firefighters were working, not everything that's burning.
The government has not updated its count of areas engulfed by fires since July. The fire season, based on data from Indonesia's Ministry of Forestry, intensified in August. Officials have also bristled at criticism from neighbors. A government spokesman, Syahganda Nainggolan, told local media early this month that Indonesia doesn't only send haze.
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SYAHGANDA NAINGGOLAN: (Non-English language spoken).
RAO: He says the oxygen in Singapore and Malaysia comes from Indonesia's forests. Indonesia has approved accepting foreign assistance to help fight the fires, and police say they have identified more than 200 individuals and nine companies as suspects involved in fires but have not made any arrests. Southeast Asian foreign ministers are set to discuss the transboundary haze in a meeting next month, but weather forecasters don't expect the rainy season to help mitigate the fires until December. For NPR News, I'm Naina Rao in Jakarta. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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