Singapore expresses concern to Indonesia over potential haze comeback

SINGAPORE, July 22 (Xinhua) -- The head of Singapore's National Environment Agency has expressed concern to his Indonesian counterparts over the sudden spike in the number of forest fire hotspots in neighboring Sumatra, the agency said on Monday.

Ronnie Tay, chief executive officer of the agency, wrote to Indonesian Deputy Minister for Environmental Degradation Control and Climate Change Arief Yuwono, and called Indonesian Deputy Minister for Environment and Social Vulnerability Willem Rampangilei, to express the concern.

He said that the region could be shrouded by the smoke haze again should the number of hotspots continue to remain high.

"He sought an urgent update of Indonesia's efforts to tackle the fires there and urged Indonesia to take immediate action," the agency said in a statement.

Tay also extended Singapore's support and assistance to Indonesia's efforts to prevent the haze situation from recurring, reiterating its offer to provide support in the early detection of hotspots and suppression of fires, and renewing its standing offer of an aircraft to assist in cloud seeding operations.

Indonesia's Rampangilei shared that there has been new sporadic burning, but he assured Tay the Indonesian government is monitoring the situation and is taking action through cloud seeding and water bombing efforts, the National Environment Agency of Singapore said.

Satellite images show there has been a marked increase in the number of hotspots over the last two days, with 261 hotspots on July 21 and 252 hotspots on July 22, respectively.

The agency said it has advised the interim ASEAN Coordinating Center through the ASEAN Specialized Meteorological Center that " Alert Level 3 for Sumatra has been activated."

The transboundary haze has been a persistent problem for the region as the practice of slash-and-burn to create farming fields is still not unusual, especially in parts of Indonesia.

It made headlines earlier this year as the smoke from Sumatra led to a severe haze over Singapore and parts of Malaysia, pushing the air pollution in these places to unprecedented "hazardous" levels and hitting the tourist industries.

The smoke haze is currently not being blown towards Singapore, as the winds are from the southeast or south. However, some of the states in Malaysia have been experiencing a worsening in their air quality since late Saturday morning.

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