Indonesia haze puts 5m at risk, official says

Indonesia's wildfire haze has directly exposed more than five million people on Borneo and Sumatra to health risks, deputy health minister Dante Saksono Harbuwono said, as the government expanded cloud seeding and water-bombing operations.

Dante said about 13,500 people were treated for respiratory infections in July and August. He said children, elderly people, pregnant women with asthma and outdoor workers were among the vulnerable groups needing evaluation.

Several schools have been closed intermittently. The haze has also made people in Singapore and Malaysia unwell.

The health ministry has distributed more than five million masks across Indonesia. NGOs have set up two shelters in Palangkaraya, the capital of Central Kalimantan on Borneo, for babies and children affected by the haze, with more planned.

Indonesia's disaster agency BNPB said cloud seeding remained one measure to fight forest and land fires, while ground and air teams continued extinguishing and cooling operations.

BNPB spokesperson Berton Suar Pelita Panjaitan said cloud seeding depended on atmospheric conditions and rain-bearing clouds. The agency said it had poured more than four million litres of water on burning areas in recent weeks and scattered more than 8,000 kilograms of salt onto clouds on Wednesday alone.

Berton said cloud seeding this week succeeded in prompting light to moderate rain over east and south Sumatra and west Kalimantan.

The government said last week that fires between January and July burned more than 200,000 hectares of land, more than during previous El Nino seasons in 2019 and 2023. El Nino typically brings drought in Indonesia.

Many wildfires in Indonesia are blamed on slash-and-burn land-clearing practices for agriculture. Indra Syahnanda of the WALHI environmental advocacy group urged the government to address what he called the root causes of the recurring haze.