The government has utilized all resources it has but apparently failed to put out forest and bush fires spewing the black smokes to the air
Thousands of travelers were stranded on Sunday in Pekanbaru, the capital city of Riau after tens of flights were canceled on thick smokes blanketing the airport of Sultan Syarif Kasim II.
The visibility at the airport is only from 50 meters to 300 meters making it impossible for an aircraft to take off and land at the airport.
"Until mid day today 36 flights schedule were already canceled on bad weather," Air Port Duty Manager of the airport Hasnan said.
Hasnan said normally everyday the airport recorded around 8,000 travelers arriving at and departing from the airport.
Long delay forces the travelers to demand for a refund for their tickets or reschedule their flights. Some of them plan to travel by sea or by cars.
In other areas such as in Palangka Raya, Central Kalimantan, the people also still complained inconvenience such as about difficulty to breath on dense and dirty smokes.
Many people have suffered respiratory track infection because of the dirty smokes.
The condition on Sunday, however, was not as worse as on Saturday when visibility is between 10-20 meters in some places in the provincial city.
The organization of environmentalists (Walhi) of Central Kalimantan sharply criticized the government for failure to anticipate and take steps to prevent the annual problem.
The country has faced the problem over forest and bush fires every year in dry season.
This year the drought is worse with the El Nino weather phenomenon.
Singapore and Malaysia have protested Indonesian failure to cope with the forest fires that also pollute their air. (*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2015
