Airport in Riau Paralyzed as Haze Grows Thicker

RADARPEKANBARU.COM-Sutan Syarif Kasim II Airport in the Riau provincial capital of Pekanbaru was paralyzed on Saturday as a smoky haze became thicker and thicker, shortening the visibility of the air surrounding the city to only 100 meters, far less than the normal condition of 10,000 meters.

“No planes could fly,” said airport duty manager Hasnan in Pekanbaru on Saturday, adding that the airport runway was covered by the pollution.

Tempo.co reported that since Friday, the thick forest fire smoke filled Pekanbaru air, after rain poured onto the city on the previous days. He said that 32 flights were delayed on Friday.

The Pekanbaru station of the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) reported that the Tera and Aqua satellites detected 883 hot spots in the Sumatra forests, indicating the spread of forest fires. It was far worse than the situation of the day before when there were only 665 hot spots.

Meanwhile, there were only 15 hot spots in the Riau forests.

The air quality was declining in many parts of the province, while the visibility in other Riau regencies was no different: 100 meters in Rengat regency, 100 meters in Pelawan and 500 meters in Dumai.

Meanwhile, firefighters continuously tried to extinguish the forest fires from the air. For example, helicopters carried out water bombing to extinguish fires in the Kayuagung forest, Ogan Komering Ilir, South Sumatra.

Local people witnessed a number of helicopters take on water from the Kemering River and fly to the burning forests, tribunnews.com reported. (radarpku/tjp)