Indonesia’s Wildfire Haze Has Now Sent 174,694 People to Clinics With Breathing Trouble
174,694. That's the latest count of Indonesia haze respiratory infections recorded in the country's worst-hit provinces since the start of August, and more than 40,000 of them are toddlers. Health ministry official Then Suyanti gave the number at a press conference in Jakarta on Tuesday, covering cases recorded between August 1 and September 21 across seven provinces battered by wildfire smoke. Two weeks earlier, on September 9, the figure stood at just over 113,000. It jumped by more than 60,000 cases in under two weeks.
Fires burning across Borneo, Sumatra and Papua have blanketed huge stretches of the country in smog thick enough to cut visibility and choke air quality readings across the region. Neighboring Malaysia and Singapore are breathing the same haze. Indonesia is home to mor...