Hundreds Of Asians Fall Sick From Smoke Millions Inhaling Equivalent Of 5 Packs Of Cigarettes A Day

Tens of millions of people across Southeast Asia are inhaling the equivalent of five packs of cigarettes a day as forest fires set by logging companies rage across areas of Indonesia as large as the state of Connecticut.

And, because of a severe drought caused by this year’s El Nino weather event in the Pacific Ocean, it could be weeks before monsoons arrive to douse the fires and clear the skies over Singapore, Malaysia and other neighboring countries, specialists said Thursday.

Officials estimate that more than 1,000 people on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra have been treated for respiratory sicknesses. Two deaths are blamed on the fires, but the toll is expected to soar.

“This is a disaster,” said Dr. Erdianato, a doctor in the Indonesian city of Jambi who, like many Indonesians, goes by one name. “We are seeing upper respiratory problems now. But we are very worried about lower respiratory problems. There’s the possibility of lung cancer in the years to come.”

Claude Martin, director general of the Geneva-based World Wide Fund for Nature, called the fires “a planetary disaster.” He added: “The sky in Southeast Asia has turned yellow, and people are dying.”

A choking haze of smoke that has forced people to wear gas masks and restricted visibility so severely it has grounded airplanes - including some Indonesian Air Force jets trying to seed clouds to make rain - has grown to the size of the eastern United States, spreading to the Philippines and Thailand.

Officials in the region are monitoring the fires to determine whether they are in danger of spreading to the tropical nation’s peat and coal bogs, where they could burn for months or years, and prove nearly impossible to put out.

The U.S. State Department issued a warning Thursday that air pollution in areas of Indonesia - including southern Sumatra, Kalimantan, southern Irian Jaya and Sulawesi - was “very unhealthy” to “dangerous.”

To minimize the health damage, officials are warning hundreds of thousands of people not to leave their homes to minimize their chances of breathing soiled air.

Environmental advocates said one terrible paradox is that the raging wildfires have probably been directly encouraged by Indonesia’s Sept. 15 announcement giving timber companies 15 days to show that they had stopped using fire to clear-cut forests. Indonesian Environmental Minister Sarwono Kusumaatmadja said he believes many of the 175 plantation and forestry companies cited for setting fires were trying to clear out land for lumber and palm-oil plantations before the deadline hits.

“Ironically, hot spots increased after the ban was introduced,” said Nabiel Makarim, an Indonesian pollution-control official.

Satellite monitoring has revealed more than 70 locations on Sumatra and in the Kalimantan provinces on Borneo where forest fires are out of control. Makarim predicted the number will grow to more than 100 in the next few weeks.

The satellites revealed that forestry companies had expanded their burning, usually done just in the afternoon, to round-the-clock infernos that are now raging unchecked.

“This has been in the making for years, absolutely years, and it’s a result of appalling forestry practices and rapacious greed,” said Stephanie Fried, a staff scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund in Washington who spent two years in Indonesia studying forestry practices in 1991-92.

Indonesia reaps more than $3 billion annually from exporting timber, much of which comes to the United States as plywood. A close ally of President Suharto, Mohamad (Bob) Hasan, who controls nearly 5 million acres of national logging concessions, recently built a 450,000-ton-a-year paper and pulp mill on Borneo, spurring continuing efforts to replace natural forests with tree plantations.