'Nowhere to escape' - Indonesians share footage of orange haze blanketing towns — SkimNews
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- Palangka Raya was blanketed by thick orange smog, with witnesses filming the haze washing over Indonesia's Kalimantan region near ongoing wildfires.
- Indonesia's national environment ministry recorded an ISPU air pollution index exceeding 1,200 on Wednesday — four times the "hazardous" level of 300.
- Toxic smog is choking millions of people simultaneously across Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia.
- Authorities partly blame the agricultural clearing method known as "slash and burn" for compounding the intense haze.
Why it matters: With the ISPU reading at 1,200 — quadruple the hazardous threshold — millions of residents across three Southeast Asian countries face dangerous air quality directly linked to slash-and-burn clearing. The cross-border spread into Singapore and Malaysia means the public-health fallout extends well beyond the fire sites in Kalimantan.
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