Two Indonesians became the first to die from the thick smog blanketing much of south-east Asia, with the widening crisis leaving tens of thousands sick and millions gasping for breath, officials said yesterday.
The first wave of more than 2,000 Malaysian fire-fighters arrived in the Indonesian province of Sumatra to combat the ground and forest fires belching out a pall of smoke, as other countries also pledged to help tackle the worsening environmental disaster.
France has already sent a group of experts to Malaysia to evaluate the risks of the haze which has hit the eastern state of Sarawak where there is a state of emergency.
Visibility was reduced and hundreds of thousands of people in six countries have had to wear masks outdoors. The six countries affected so far are Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Thailand and the Philippines.
The haze, which has closed schools, grounded airplanes and turned day into near-night, has been blamed on forestry companies in Indonesia's West Kalimantan and Sumatra regions using slash and burn methods.
The fires, an annual occurrence, have been fanned this year by a prolonged drought in Indonesia, partly blamed on the El Nino weather phenomenon which has wrought peculiar climatic changes. "Both are feeding back on the other, and exacerbating the situation," Mr Michael Coughlan, director of the World Meteorological Organisation's world climate programme, said in Geneva.
The secretary of the Co-ordinating Minister of People's Welfare, Mr Suyono Tahya, said two Indonesians had died of respiratory complications and 32,328 others were suffering from respiratory ailments. Another 15,000 have received treatment in Malaysia.
The leading environmental group, the World-Wide Fund for Nature, blamed short-term greed and forest mismanagement for the intense pollution. "Years of mismanagement of forests have probably led to this," Mr Jean-Paul Jeanrenaud, head of WWF International's forest programme, said.