Struggling to breathe through acrid haze from wildfires on Indonesia’s Borneo Island, residents said they feared for their health but had little to do but wait out the foul-smelling hazard.
Resident Anggita Putri said the air quality index in Pontianak, the capital of West Kalimantan province, briefly exceeded 1,100 over the weekend — nearly four times the hazardous limit. The thick yellow smoke was intense enough to paralyse the city’s international airport during the same period.
“My eyes sting, my head hurts. Over the past week it’s been getting worse,” Anggita, 28, who has a three-year-old son, said. “While working, my chest feels tight, my head dizzy, my eyes burning. Even with this unhealthy air, we still must work.”
The health ministry said more than 113,000 cases of upper respiratory tract infections had been recorded across seven provinces since the fires began early this year. For many parents, the danger extends into daycare and classrooms. University lecturer Djunita Permata Indah, 35, said her two children, aged two and four, continued attending day care despite the smoke entering homes.
The blazes have disrupted livelihoods as well as health. Snack seller Desia, who like many Indonesians uses one name, said she stopped working two weeks ago because she could no longer spend time outdoors. Her two children, aged 10 and 11, have not attended school in over a month, staying in the only room with an air purifier.
Indonesia battles wildfires each dry season, typically from July to October, but this year’s fires have been particularly severe. The powerful El Nino climate pattern, expected to be the strongest since comparable records began four decades ago, has partly caused them. Experts also point to climate change, decades of forest degradation and slash-and-burn land-clearing that has altered a naturally fire-resistant terrain, a pattern respiratory patients across the region have faced as air quality worsens.
The government said more than 202,000 hectares of land burned nationwide between January and July. The Nusantara Atlas project put that figure close to 300,000 hectares for the same period and estimated the total affected area, including August, was nearly 896,000 hectares. From Borneo, the haze has spread to neighbouring Singapore and Malaysia.
Local authorities said they were intensifying efforts to control the smoke, including waterbombing and cloud seeding. Brief rainfall on Tuesday, which some residents hoped might ease conditions, instead intensified the thick smoke. For families breathing the toxic air daily, relief hinges on the weather. “Right now, I just hope for rain,” Desia said.