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New planes to fight Asian haze
23/10/2006 14:38 - (SA)
Jakarta - Indonesia has leased two Russian firefighting aircraft to tackle hundreds of man-made forest fires that have sent choking haze across parts of South-East Asia, a local report said on Monday.
The amphibious BE-200 aircraft can hold up to 11 metric tons of water collected from a lake or the ocean - three times as much as any Indonesian plane - and then drop the payload onto the fires, The Jakarta Post reported.
"Our helicopters, including reinforcements from our air force's Hercules (C-130 airplane) for cloud seeding and water bombing operations are apparently not sufficient," presidential spokesperson Dino Patti Djalal told the Post.
The aircraft were expected to arrive in Indonesia by the end of the month, the report said.
Each year, illegal slash-and-burning practices by farmers, plantation owners and loggers on Sumatra and Borneo islands sends haze into neighbouring countries including Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Thailand.
The annual phenomenon is at its worst during the dry season, which runs from July through October. The latest haze crisis pushed air quality in Singapore and Malaysia to unhealthy levels in recent weeks and forced several regional airports in Indonesia to ground airplanes due to limited visibility.
Education officials on the Indonesian side of Borneo were forced to close schools until early November because of the haze, and residents were advised to remain indoors unless absolutely necessary.
Sapa-dpa
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