Severe Toxic Haze from Indonesian Wildfires Chokes Malaysian Borneo and Triggers Health Crisis

Smoke from forest and peatland fires burning across Indonesia has pushed air quality in parts of Malaysian Borneo to hazardous levels, triggering a surge in respiratory illness and forcing the cancellation of outdoor Independence Day celebrations. The smoke – drifting from fires in Sumatra and in Kalimantan, the Indonesian portion of Borneo Island – has settled over the Malaysian state of Sarawak for much of August. It has also reached peninsular Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore. It is the region’s worst haze episode since 2015, when fires in Indonesia exposed tens of millions of people to toxic smoke and caused more than 500,000 people to suffer respiratory ailments.

On Tuesday, six areas in Sarawak recorded hazardous air quality, with readings above 300 on Malaysia’s Air Pollutant Index. Anything above 100 is considered unhealthy. In Kuching, the state capital, the index hit 407, while in Serian, a town close to the Kalimantan border, it hit 408. Mia Emylia Hassan, 33, a mother of two in Kuching, said the smell of smoke was inescapable. “The air here is very thick,” she said. “It smells like smoke, and it’s just white all over.” Visibility from her house, she said, had dropped to about a kilometre, or roughly half a mile. “We have not seen blue sky for over a month,” she said.

The haze arrived in early August, shortly after her 10-month-old daughter came home from the hospital after a lung infection. “She’s not healing properly because her lungs are still developing,” Hassan said. “She’s been on medication this whole month, and she has been coughing and vomiting.” Twice, the family has had to rush the infant back to the emergency room because she could not breathe. “It’s a mini heart attack for us every time,” Hassan said.

Malaysia’s Ministry of Health has reported a sharp rise in illness nationwide. During the week of August 23 to 29, asthma cases climbed to 1,811, up from 219 the previous week, the ministry said on Saturday, while conjunctivitis cases also rose to 720, from 146. In peninsular Malaysia, Karen-Michaela Tan, an asthma patient who lives near the capital, Kuala Lumpur, said that a week after the haze thickened, she was “wheezing audibly” and “breathless when climbing stairs”. The 52-year-old said she needed two nebuliser treatments back to back to stop the wheezing, along with a heavy dose of steroids.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a regional bloc, has activated a Level 3 transboundary haze alert – its highest – for the southern part of the region. The toxic smoke has forced Sarawak to cancel its outdoor Independence Day celebrations on Monday, and officials warned that worse restrictions could follow. Any area where readings cross 500 will be placed under a local emergency, and all public and private offices will be closed, the deputy premier, Douglas Uggah Embas, told reporters.

In Indonesia, the country’s deputy health minister, Dante Saksono Harbuwono, told reporters on Monday that some 13,500 people were treated for respiratory infections in July and August, while about 5.5 million people on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra have been directly exposed to smoke. According to the government, fires between January and July burned more than 200,000 hectares, an area three times the size of Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta. Indonesian police said last week that they had arrested 72 people suspected of setting recent fires to clear ground for palm oil, farming, and pulp and paper production.

Researchers warned people in Southeast Asia to brace for a long fire season as an intensifying El Nino weather pattern brings hotter and drier conditions. Helena Varkkey, a specialist on transboundary haze at Universiti Malaya, and Jayaprakash Muralitharan, a Malaysian atmospheric scientist, noted that the severe conditions are expected to persist until sustained rain arrives around September or October.