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SINGAPORE - A shift in wind direction brought the haze from Indonesia's land-clearing fires back to Singapore on Tuesday after an earlier clean air reprieve. The Pollution Standards Index (PSI) moved out of the healthy range to 57 and remained within the moderate category.
Singaporeans have been out in force since last Wednesday, when heavy showers cleared the air of the weeks of haze that triggered warnings from environmental officials to stay indoors and in air conditioned rooms.
Heavy monsoon showers expected late next month are likely to douse the flames that have spawned the haze over parts of Southeast Asia, meteorologists said. PSI readings below 50 are considered good and 51 to 100 moderate. The unhealthy range starts at levels above 101. The National University of Singapore (NUS) Centre of Remote Imaging, Sensing and Processing detected 77 hot spots, far less than the 3,600 reported by Indonesian authorities on October 7 when the PSI hit a nine-year-high of 150 in the city-state.
Increased rainfall in Sumatra and Kalimantan has helped reduce the amount of smoke, but the winds are unpredictable and hazy conditions may persist in the city-state, the organization said. Environment ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations plan to meet next week in the Philippines to come up with an enforceable plan to end the yearly scourge.
This year's haze has been the worst since 1997. In addition to hurting outdoor businesses, the haze has been taking its toll on health as complaints of haze-related ailments soar. Experts have warned that next year's haze could be the worst yet with a possible return of the El Nino weather effect. Similar weather conditions resulted in Singapore's filthiest air in 1997 and could prolong the dry season in Indonesia by about four months, researchers at an international centre told The Straits Times.
The haze could linger to February next year, warned professor of meteorology Xie Shang-Ping with the International Pacific Research Centre in Hawaii. "If the El Nino extends to the next slash-and-burn season, we can definitely anticipate a haze matching that of 1997 when the PSI hit a record 226," the newspaper quoted Assistant Professor Chang Chew Hung with Singapore's National Institute of Education as saying.
"An El Nino provides the preconditions for a catastrophe," said National University of Singapore geography lecturer Victor Savage. El Nino is a periodic upwelling of warm water in the Pacific Ocean, which causes flooding in some parts of the world and extreme droughts in others, including Southeast Asia. In the run-up to the Philippine conference, Environment Minister Yaacob Ibrahim has been urging Indonesia to ratify an anti-haze agreement reached in 2002 by the Asean countries.
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