A couple passes by the skyline of the financial district during haze in Singapore yesterday.

AFP/Singapore

Air pollution in Singapore rose to unhealthy levels yesterday, blanketing the city-state’s skyline with clouds of smog from fires raging across giant rainforests in the neighbouring Indonesian island of Sumatra, officials said.

Singapore’s National Environment Agency said the pollutant standards index (PSI) reached a high of 111 at 7:00 am (2300 GMT) before easing to 80 a few hours later.

A reading between 101-200 is considered “unhealthy”, with people with existing heart or respiratory ailments advised to reduce physical exertion and outdoor activity.

Singapore and neighbouring Malaysia are smothered annually in varying degrees by smog from forest fires in Indonesia during the summer months from June to September.

Last year’s smog was the worst since 1997-1998, when the smoke caused an estimated $9bn in losses in economic activity across Southeast Asia. The NEA said in a statement that the current smog is “most likely due to the hotspots (forest fires) in South Sumatra detected over the past three to four days”.

“Given the continued dry weather in southern Sumatra, we can expect the hotspots to persist and the 24-hour PSI for Singapore to fluctuate between the high-end of the moderate range and the low-end of the unhealthy range for the rest of the day.”

 

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