Friday, June 21, 2013

Indonesia to make it rain to stop 'life threatening' smog...

Indonesia on Friday deployed helicopters to artificially create rain in a bid to fight raging fires that have choked Singapore with smog, which has hit record levels that pose a potentially deadly threat to the elderly and the ill.

At a late-night emergency meeting, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono ordered disaster officials to "immediately mobilise all the country's resources" to extinguish the fires on Sumatra island that have created vast palls of smoke.

Singapore's worst environmental crisis in more than a decade has seen the acrid smoke creep into people's flats and cloak residential blocks as well as downtown skyscrapers, and the island's prime minister has warned it could last weeks.

Indonesia's national disaster agency said that two helicopters with cloud-seeding equipment were sent early Friday from Jakarta and Borneo island to Riau province, where hundreds of hectares of carbon-rich peatland are ablaze.

"Hopefully, we will be able to create artificial rain today," said agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho. Full story...

Related posts:
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  3. Indonesian minister says Singapore "behaving like a small child" over haze...
  4. Singapore smog 'could last for weeks' as pollution level reaches...
  5. Singapore and Indonesia clash over regional haze...
  6. Smoke from Indonesia shrouds Singapore...
  7. Haze in Singapore, Indonesia under pressure... 

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