Indonesia’s health ministry said about 175,000 people have suffered respiratory illness since August as wildfire smoke blanketed parts of the country and neighboring Malaysia and Singapore, the BBC reported, citing ministry figures that put more than 40,000 of those cases in toddlers.
Illnesses ranged from mild coughs to bronchitis and pneumonia, the BBC said. Ministry tallies earlier showed wildfire-related respiratory cases more than doubling to 113,336 by Sept. 9 from 50,891 on Sept. 1. Schools have closed and hospital admissions have surged in affected areas, according to the BBC.
Air quality indices have reached unhealthy levels regionally. Reuters (opens in new tab) reported that Pontianak in West Kalimantan logged an IQAir reading of 394 on Sept. 9—hazardous on the scale it cited—and that Indonesia’s environment ministry said it viewed hazardous readings “with concern” while noting Copernicus emissions data do not directly equal local air-quality conditions.
Authorities have deployed more than 54,000 personnel and dozens of aircraft for water-bombing on Borneo and Sumatra, Cabinet Secretary Teddy Indra Wijaya said, according to the BBC. Cloud-seeding operations have also been conducted, including with Japan Self-Defense Forces support, the BBC reported; meteorologists remain divided on cloud-seeding effectiveness.
The BBC separately reported that a West Kalimantan wildlife foundation shared footage of an orangutan treated for hypoxia after being found on a palm-oil plantation; the animal later died. Indigenous and civil-society groups in West Kalimantan filed a class-action suit accusing governments of negligence over recurring haze disasters, their lawyer said in a statement quoted by the BBC.