Haze covers Pontianak disturbs flight schedule

Antara, 15 August 2006:

Haze covers Pontianak, disturbs flight schedules

Pontianak, West Kalimantan (ANTARA News) - Haze covered Pontianak,

capital of West Kalimantan Province, on Tuesday morning, disturbing

landing schedules of flights from Jakarta as visibility fell to 200- 500 meters.

The haze forced a number of planes to delay their landing for at

least one hour on Tuesday morning, Maroni, a staff officer at Supadio

Airport in Pontianak, said here on Tuesday.

"According to the earlier schedule, Sriwijaya and Adam Air planes

from Jakarta were expected to land at around 7 a.m., but up to 8.30

a.m. they are still unable to land," he said.

A Batavia plane landed at 8 a.m. after being delayed for around one

hour due to the haze.

Since the dry season started, a number of flight schedules were

disturbed because the airport was covered by haze.

At the airport area in the early morning, visibility usually reaches

around 200 meters to 500 meters, and later in the day, it improves to

more than 1,000 meters.

Some 566 hotspots of forest fires were last week detected in West

Kalimantan`s 10 districts.

Sanggau District had the highest number of hot spots with 149

spreading in its 12 sub-districts, according to Soenarso, an officer

of Forest Fire Control Unit of the West Kalimantan Forest Service,

here on Friday.

In Ketapang district, 106 hot spots were detected among other things

in the province`s national park and protected forest area.

Some 99 hot spots were found in Sintang district, 54 in Pontianak, 21

in Landak district, 14 in Sekadau, and two in Sambas district

Forest fires, as the cheapest way to clear land for plantations on

Sumatra and Kalimantan Islands, have often produced thick haze that

eventually also drifted to neighboring countries such as Malaysia and

Singapore.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono last June called on ministers

concerned, provincial governors, district chiefs and mayors to

jointly prevent, anticipate and handle forest and land fires whenever

they occur.