More than 170,000 respiratory cases recorded in haze-choked Indonesia

As it continues to battle wildfires that have raged for weeks, some 175, 000 individuals in Indonesia have suffered from respiratory illness since August, its health ministry stated.

Key points

• Since January, at least 895, 657 hectares of land – almost six times the size of Greater London – have been burned.
• "From the air to the ground, all forces continue to move, " Indonesia's Cabinet Secretary Teddy Indra Wijaya remarked on Monday.
• "October might be hotter and drier, " Sarawak's Deputy Premier Douglas Uggah Embas remarked to journalists.
• More than 40, 000 cases – which range from coughs to bronchitis and more serious conditions like pneumonia – involve toddlers.
• Forest fires have blanketed parts of the country as well as neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore in toxic smog, pushing air quality indices into "unhealthy" territory.

Indonesia has deployed more than 54, 000 authorities and dozens of jets to the islands of Borneo and Sumatra for water bombing, but the vast territory and challenging peatland conditions produce it hard to put out the fires, authorities say.

"Everything is being done to extinguish the fires, reduce the impact of the smoke, and, most importantly, protect the public from the threat of forest and land fires."

Indonesia regularly battles wildfires during its annual dry season. It usually runs from July through October.

This year, nevertheless, the fires and haze have been turbocharged by a so-called "Godzilla" El Nino. It has fuelled extremely dry conditions.

In practice, the independent forest monitoring platform Nusantara Atlas has detected around 734, 000 hotspots nationwide as of Wednesday – a figure that is more than 30% higher than that of 2019, one of Indonesia's worst wildfire seasons.

For context, the wildfires have led to school closures and a surge in hospital admissions throughout Indonesia.

Meanwhile, the number of individuals suffering wildfire-related respiratory illnesses had more than doubled to 113, 336 by 9 September, up from 50, 891 on 1 September, according to figures from the health ministry.

In practice, the toxic smog has additionally taken a toll on wildlife, including critically endangered orangutans.

Late last month, an Indonesia-based wildlife foundation shared footage showing an orangutan writhing on the ground on a palm oil plantation in West Kalimantan, one of Indonesia's hardest-hit provinces. The great ape, which was discovered by a farmer, was rescued and given emergency treatment for hypoxia, but afterwards died.

Indigenous and civil society groups in West Kalimantan filed a class action suit last week against the central administration and local administrations, accusing them of deliberate negligence for failing to properly tackle the wildfires scorching the province.

"This is a disaster that occurs every year. This recurring pattern proves our view that the defendants knew regarding the potential haze disaster and the risks of disaster from forest and land fires, " the group's lawyer Glorio Sanen stated in an official note at the time.

Indonesia has carried out a number of rounds of cloud-seeding operations in recent weeks, some conducted together with members of Japan's Self-Defense Forces who arrived in Borneo earlier this month to assist with firefighting efforts.

Cloud seeding involves manipulating existing clouds, such as by dropping salt crystals or silver iodide into them, to support produce more rain. Meteorologists, nevertheless, are divided over the effectiveness of the practice.

In the Malaysian state of Sarawak, one of the worst-affected areas outside Indonesia, authorities introduced a five-day cloud-seeding operation earlier this month.

Apart from tackling the ongoing haze, this exercise was aimed at boosting declining water levels at a number of hydropower dams ahead of a severe dry spell forecast for October.

"October might be hotter and drier, " Sarawak's Deputy Premier Douglas Uggah Embas remarked to journalists. "We want to increase the water levels as much as possible while we still can."

In practice, the haze has reached as far as parts of the Philippines, where local authorities have called on residents to stay indoors as much as feasible, and Singapore, where authorities have begun issuing daily haze advisories.

Taken together, the developments around more than 170, 000 respiratory cases recorded in haze point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.