Smog covers Kuala Lumpur capital city of Malaysia (Photo: AFP/VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – Malaysia is planning to seedclouds to make rain as air quality in many areas of the country has reachedunhealthy levels due to smog from forest fires in neighbouring Indonesia.
Smog regularly covers parts of Southeast Asiaduring the dry season when burning is used by Indonesian people to clear landfor palm oil and other crops.
In the latest outbreak, parts of Malaysia’seastern state of Sarawak on Borneo island have been blanketed over the past fewdays.
Gary Theseira, an official at the Malaysianenvironment ministry, said the country is preparing to carry out cloud seedingto induce rain in an effort to ease the smog.
The country’s meteorological department warnedon September 8 that hot conditions will prevail for another week, and themonsoon season is expected to arrive only at the end of September or earlyOctober.
The Malaysian Ministry of Science, Technologyand Innovation said it would lodge a complaint with Indonesia for the haze, andcalled for quick action to be taken to put out the fires.
Meanwhile, Indonesia is struggling with theworst forest fires in two decades. Under pressure from neighbours, itsPresident Joko Widodo last month warned that officials would be sacked if theyfailed to stamp out forest fires.-VNA
VNA
