HAZE CONTINUES TO COVER PEKANBARU

Pekanbaru, Riau, June 23 (ANTARA) - Haze triggered by forest and plantation fires has continued to cover Pekanbaru, Riau Province's capital, over the past one month.

The haze made the sky cloudy but it was not a sign that it would rain while visibility had dropped.

A number of Pekanbaru residents complained that the haze was affecting their health.

MQ Rudi, a local inhabitant, said he started to suffer from throat irritation and respiratory problem.

"Haze lingers on every day, and it gets worse in the evening and morning, when the haze produces a strong smell" he said.

However, the haze did not affect flights Pekanbaru's Sultan Syarif Kasim II airport on Tuesday morning, as visibility was more than 2 km, according to the airport's duty manager, Ibnu Hasan.

"We can indeed see haze in the air but it's rather thin, and doesn't affect flights," Ibnu Hasan said.

Based on the latest monitoring of NOAA 18 Satellite, some 45 hot spots of forest and plantations fires were detected in several districts in Riau Province, according to information of the local meteorological, climatology and geophysics office.

The hot spots were detected in Pelalawan Districts (18 hot spots), in Rokan Hilir District (10), Kampar (5), Siak (4), Bengkalis (3), Indragiri Hulu (2), Rokan Hulu (1), Kuatan Singingi (1), and Dumai city (1).

Last Monday (June 22), two airports in Riau Province were closed due to haze coming from plantation and forest fires.

The two haze-affected airports were Sultan Syarif Kasim (SSK) II Airport in Pekanbaru and Pinang Kampai airport in Dumai.

"We have to close the airport for 90 minutes because the visibility has dropped to only 500 meters," Taslim, traffic supervisor of the Pekanbaru SSK II airport, told ANTARA on Monday.

The minimum visibility required for the flight safety is 1,000 meters, and if the visibility is below the figure, the airport has to be closed, according to Taslim.