2006 Southeast Asian haze
The 2006 Southeast Asian haze was an air pollution event caused by continuous, uncontrolled burning from "slash and burn" cultivation in Indonesia, which affected several countries in the Southeast Asian region and beyond, including Malaysia, Singapore, southern Thailand, and as far away as Saipan;[1] the effects of the haze may have even spread to South Korea.
[2] Local sources of industrial pollution also, inadvertently, contributed to increases in air toxicity (particularly in already-polluted areas); notably at-risk areas included communities close to textile factories, fertilizer plants, meat-packing plants, industrialised dairy farms, shipping ports, and oil refineries.
In the highly urban and industrialised Klang Valley of Malaysia, in particular, the surrounding elevated terrain acted as a natural retainer of polluted air, aggravating the situation as the haze set in.
[3] The haze was made worse than during previous occurrences by the El Niño-Southern Oscillation which delayed the year's monsoon season.
[4] Air quality across the region appeared to improve in late October as heavy rainfall doused fires in Indonesia.
[5] Brunei, an independent sultanate that is surrounded by East Malaysia's Sarawak state on Borneo, had been affected by the haze from Kalimantan.
[12] But the country lacked adequate equipment for fighting forest fires, having aeroplanes that were far too small to carry enough water to douse the flames.
[15][16] The haze was blamed for a Mandala Airlines flight from Balikpapan, the provincial capital of East Kalimantan, skidding off the runway upon landing at Tarakan on 3 October, when visibility was reported at around 400 metres.
[18] On 21 October 12 airlines cancelled domestic flights from Soekarno-Hatta International Airport due to smog at many destinations, including Jambi, Banjarmasin, Jayapura, Semarang, Surabaya, Bengkulu, Denpasar, Makassar, Pekanbaru and Padang.
[19] A 20 October report by Malaysian government news agency BERNAMA offered a first-hand account of the scene in Kalimantan: "The suffocating smell of smoke, sore throat and eyes got worse when this reporter and a photographer stepped foot in central Kalimantan, forcing them to put on face masks.
Throughout the 200-kilometre journey from Banjarmasin to Palangkaraya, what could be seen of the forests on both sides of the road was a landscape of blackish soil with smoke still billowing from the ground in some areas and of withering trees and plants.
On 7 October 2006, the 3-hour PSI reading breached the 100 mark at 8 a.m. and entered unhealthy levels for the first time in the year, as winds from neighbouring Sumatra blew the haze to Singapore.
[31] Although the air quality was set to improve with the arrival of the Northeast monsoon rains in mid-October, southeasterly winds extended the hazy season.
[33] Air quality remained in the moderate range for the next week[28] until 14 October, when the 3-hour PSI readings gradually increased from 53 at 6 a.m. to peak at an unhealthy 116 at 10 p.m.[34] This time, majority of the haze came from Kalimantan.
However, in early November, intermonsoonal winds brought slight haze back to Singapore, with the 3-hour PSI in the moderate range most of the time.
[50] Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan said that there was "very little that (could) be done to stop the haze", and advised people to remain indoors, especially those with prior respiratory conditions.
[51] Some minor haze-related illness began to surface, but free clinics across the island did not report any increase in patients with this symptoms.
Best Denki, an electronic store, sold S$350,000 worth of air purifiers and related items in 4 days, a 300 percent increase.
Some speculated that the more polluted air was caused by the many construction sites and industrial parks in Jurong, but NEA refuted this, claiming that they did not contribute to the haze.
The Singapore Sports School's swim team had to cut back on training when the haze reached unhealthy levels even though they were in the midst of various international competitions.
[56] The haze also caused increased sales and rental of entertainment VCD and DVD titles, but cinema attendance was unchanged.
[57] The National Environment Agency website received about 170,000 hits on 14 October, as compared to the usual 60,000, and caused the server to temporarily go down due to the sheer volume of traffic.
[62] Strong winds in the region brought haze from Indonesia back into Songkhla, Satun, Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat provinces on 17 October.
Visibility in Yala and Songkhla was reduced to less than a kilometre, and officials warned fishermen going out to the Andaman Sea and Gulf of Thailand to "stay vigilant".
[65] Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong expressed disappointment toward Indonesia soon after Azmi Khalid made his view public.
