South-East Asia continued to choke under its blanket of smog yesterday as officials said the haze may have caused both a plane crash in Indonesia and a boat collision off Malaysia which together claimed up to 263 lives. To add to the series of disasters affecting Indonesia, at least 12 people were killed when an earthquake measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale struck the eastern island of Sulawesi. Four other deaths in Indonesia have been linked to the haze and millions across the region have been afflicted by coughing, asthma attacks, conjunctivitis and nose and throat problems.
The Sulawesi earthquake occurred around 9.38 a.m. (12.38 a.m. Irish time) and was centred about 20km north of the town of Parepare, an official in the Jakarta office of the Meteorological and Geophysics Agency (BMG) said. More than 20 buildings were destroyed and it is thought the death toll might rise.
On the western Indonesian island of Sumatra, investigators combed through the wreckage of the Garuda Airbus 300 which plunged into a jungle ravine while flying through thick smog on Friday. They said the cause of the crash on approach to the North Sumatra provincial capital of Medan could not be determined until the plane's flight recorders were recovered, but heavy rain yesterday disrupted efforts to find them.
However, Garuda's district manager, Mr Mohamad Chanin, said he thought the haze could have been responsible. "If the weather was clear and the pilot could see, I don't think it could happen," he said.
The pilot of the flight from Jakarta had complained to air traffic controllers that he was having visibility problems moments before the crash, Indonesia's Antara news agency reported earlier.
In the Straits of Malacca, which separate Malaysia from Sumatra, Malaysian rescue ships braved thick smog to search for 29 people missing from an Indian cargo ship which sank on Saturday. The search and rescue mission proceeded despite poor visibility and increasing expectations that the missing had drowned, nearly 40 hours after the ICL Vickraman collided with the Caribbean cargo vessel Mount One.
Malaysian rescue officials said the accident could have been caused by the smog and instructed ships using the Straits of Malacca to take additional safety precautions.
The smog, which has blocked out the sun for weeks in some areas and now spread across Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore, as well as parts of Thailand and the Philippines, has been caused by raging forest fires in Indonesia.
The Malaysian opposition leader, Mr Lim Kit Siang, said yesterday that he had filed an emergency parliamentary motion for a debate on Indonesia's failure to put out the fires and Malaysia's lack of preparation for the disaster despite years of government assurance.
In Singapore air quality deteriorated towards "very unhealthy" levels, officials said, warning residents to avoid exercise or exertion and to stay indoors as the smog thickened over the city state.
Jakarta meanwhile denied being responsible for the environmental catastrophe, saying the smog was simply nature at work. Indonesian officials said one of the culprits was el nino, the climatic phenomenon which sucks moisture from the western side of the Pacific Ocean inducing prolonged dry spells in much of the region.
More than 1,000 Malaysian fire-fighters have been deployed in Sumatra to help Indonesia fight the fires. Japan, Australia, Singapore and South Korea had also made known their intention to help put out the fires, while several European countries have offered aid.
Ecologists blame the fires largely on land-clearing practices by plantation and forestry companies. But religious leaders in the region had a different explanation: they said the smog was a message from God.
"Environmental degradation has disturbed Mother Nature. The smog is only an early warning to stop destroying nature," said an Islamic religious officer in Malaysia's Sarawak state. "To our eyes, it may be due to forest fires, but from the religious perspective it is the wrath of God."
In Sumatra's Riau province Islamic authorities called on followers to stage a three-day fast to seek an end to the haze, the Republika daily reported.