East Timor shuts schools as Indonesia wildfire haze intensifies

DILI/JAKARTA — East Timor shut its schools for three days in response to intensifying smoke and haze from Indonesia's wildfires.

The East Timor government said in a statement that it was suspending face-to-face learning activities for three days starting from Oct 15 "due to contamination by pollutant particles from wildfires in neighbouring regions or countries".

East Timor did not identify Indonesia by name, but it shares an island with a part of Indonesia's East Nusa Tenggara province, where a number of hotspots have been reported.

Indonesia has been battling its most intense wildfire season in 11 years, fuelled by El Niño-related dry weather conditions. The haze has caused a spike in respiratory illnesses at home and a dramatic decline in air quality across the region, with several states in Malaysia also forced to shut down schools.

In October 2015, Indonesian wildfires brought PM2.5 levels in the west of Singapore up to a national record of 471 micrograms per cubic metre.

In the province of Central Kalimantan on Wednesday, Indonesia's ISPU air pollution index exceeded 1,200, Environment Ministry data showed, four times higher than the "hazardous" level of 300.

Local news footage showed thick yellow haze blanketing the city of Palangka Raya in Central Kalimantan, cutting visibility for motorists to a minimum. Police officers were also seen trying to hose down peatland fires on the side of the road.

Indonesia's President Prabowo Subianto has ordered additional resources to be deployed to combat the wildfires.

"We are mobilising all our resources and capabilities," said Honi Havana, an official at the Coordinating Ministry for Political and Security Affairs, during a Wednesday press briefing.

He said Jakarta has deployed more than 69,000 firefighting personnel, up from around 44,000 in mid-September, and it was also testing new methods to put out fires more effectively using special chemicals.

Authorities have been struggling with peatland fires, which smoulder slowly beneath the surface and can re-emerge anytime, said disaster mitigation agency spokesperson Berton Panjaitan.

"We must recognise that the only way to resolve this is through sustained rainfall," he said.

As Southeast Asian foreign ministers prepare to discuss the issue of transboundary haze at an ASEAN meeting next month, criticism of Indonesia has continued to mount across the region.

On Tuesday, Malaysian lawmaker Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman called on Southeast Asian nations to lodge a diplomatic protest against Jakarta for failing to do enough to control the fires.

"We must send a strong diplomatic note that Malaysia objects, and that not only Malaysia objects, it must be agreed upon by other ASEAN countries that are similarly affected, such as Singapore. We must send a very clear diplomatic protest," he told parliament.

"You need to treat them like an outcast in the region," he said, adding that Malaysian and Singaporean banks should cut off financing to companies linked to land burning.

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