Quote:Thailand haze 'worst in 14 years'

CHIANG MAI, Thailand (Reuters) -- Thick smoke from forest fires and slash-and-burn farming has spread over northern Thailand in the worst haze in 14 years, disrupting airline flights and irritating eyes and lungs, officials said on Monday.

The smoke from fires in Thailand and neighboring Laos and Myanmar slashed visibility in scores of towns and villages, including the major tourism hub of Chiang Mai.

"When I was driving to work this morning, I could see only 100 to 200 meters ahead of me," Taewan Dumronghud, a station manager for Thai Airways, told Reuters by telephone from Mae Hong Son near the Myanmar border.

"We can only hope that the rains will come sooner and wash it away," Taewan said, whose car was covered in ash at the airport.

The haze also disrupted flights to Chiang Mai on Sunday when air quality levels reached their worst in Thailand's second largest city.

Thailand's mountainous north is a popular destination for adventure tourism. The haze-affected areas are located near the borders of Myanmar and Laos -- the so-called Golden Triangle once famed for its opium poppy fields.

Weather experts said unseasonably cold weather had exacerbated the problem by pushing the smoke down into valleys and other low-lying areas.

"Sixty percent of the haze covering the region comes from burning of farm waste after harvest, and the other 40 percent from forest fires," Anuwat Kunarak, director of the region's Environment Management Office, told Reuters.

"It's cheaper for farmers to get rid of the waste by setting it on fire and then switching to a new cash crop," he said, adding the haze was the worst recorded by his office in 14 years.

Chiang Mai has been draped in a choking, eye-watering haze since last Friday, triggering health warnings for children and the elderly to stay inside or use surgery masks.

Healthy adults were urged to stop all outdoor exercise.

Many residents complained of burning eyes, coughing and sore throats from the smoke.

"This is the worst summer we have had," Pornsanong Teo, a 43-year-old father, said as he took his son to a city lookout point to observe the haze.

CNN.com March 12.2007
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Quote:Northern province a hazy disaster zone

Chiang Mai (TNA)

Chiang Rai province has been declared a disaster area as embattled provincial and other agencies confronted out-of-control brush and forest fires that have left smog and smoke hanging over northern Thailand.

Traditionally, before the rains and at the end of the hot, dry season, local farmers in the mountains burn off the preceding season's accumulation of vegetation to provide nutrients for the soil.

This year, however, the region has been especially dry, and vulnerable, to having such fires spread out of control.

Together with burn-off fires moving east and south from neighbouring Myanmar's Shan State, Thailand is besieged with conflagrations and smoke accumulation over a wide area of the region, and is on the edge of declaring an emergency zone in the northern provinces due to spreading clouds of choking smoke, clogged with dust and micro-particles of partially-burned wood, leaves and other vegetation fed by raging brushfires and forest fires.

Government spokesman Yongyuth Mayalarp announced Tuesday that the National Environment Preservation Act of 1992 might be implemented to cope with current widespread air pollution from brushfires and the burning of seasonal groundcover in the forests to the extent that part or all of the 17 northern provinces may be declared an emergency or hazardous zone.

The Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation is recruiting personnel to promptly extinguish forest blazes in those northern areas, and that special clinics may be set up on location to care for persons having illnesses related to the acrid forest smoke, the government spokesman said.

The authorities, including officials of the Public Health Ministry, the Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry, the Interior Ministry and the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry, were prohibiting local villagers in the region - especially poachers - from attempting to clear weeds and undergrowth, as well as forests, by setting them on fire.

Mr Yongyuth said some officials had suggested forest smoke should be cleared by artificial rain but technical experts at the Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry commented that they would have difficulties making artificial rain under the current dry weather conditions in the North.

The cabinet instructed local authorities to remain alert and to contain forest fires from March until June, during which an El Nino phenomenon is expected to bring drought to arid places.

Bangkok Post March 14, 2007
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This is the latest news on this situation

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Northern smog shows signs of lifting

The haze problem over the North was improving, Social Development and Human Security Minister Paiboon Wattanasiritham said yesterday.

Paiboon said dust particles less than PM10 in size had already been reduced to just over 184 micrograms per cubic metre in Chiang Mai, 103 in Lampang, 201 in Chiang Rai and to 233 in Mae Hong Son.

"Although the overall situation has improved, it is still affecting people's health," Paiboon said, in his capacity as the chairman of the panel tasked with tackling the smog crisis.

The haze has been shrouding Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Lampang, Mae Hong Son, Lamphun, Nan, Phrae and Phayao.

The Public Health Ministry yesterday sent 300,000 more masks to these provinces to help local people cope with the haze problem.

Deputy Public Health Minister Dr Morakot Kornkasem said more than 12,000 people in Chiang Rai recently sought treatment for colds, eye irritation and conjunctivitis.

Paiboon said Chiang Rai's Mae Sai district suffered serious haze problems because it was located near the border where local people lit fire.

"Both countries will have to work together and solve this problem," he said.

The Nation

Quote:First sight of blue sky in a week

Military water sprinklers break up haze

By Cheewin Sattha

Chiang Mai residents were overjoyed yesterday to catch the first sight of a clear blue sky in a week, after the city was showered with tonnes of fresh water from military aircraft for over three hours. Four military planes arrived at Chiang Mai yesterday for water sprinkling operations, the latest attempt to combat the haze which has disrupted lives in the upper North for two weeks now.

Gp Capt Sitthiporn Getchinda, a commander of Wing 41 Chiang Mai air force base, said the plan is an adapted version of the successful anti-haze operations deployed in 1982, when military aircraft sprayed rain-making chemicals and water.

On Friday Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont asked the military to undertake the operation over haze-blanketed areas, starting in Chiang Mai.

The air pollution has worsened with continued bushfires in Thailand and Burma, coupled with slash-and-burn farming practices.

Many people have fallen ill with respiratory symptoms.

Gp Capt Sitthiporn said a water truck was aboard a C310 aircraft, while the BT67 aircraft was equipped with a water tank for the operation, which would continue until the thick smog disappeared.

The operations also complement the efforts of artificial rainmakers to douse bushfires and clear dense smoke, which have been hampered by low humidity.

Somchai Ruengsuthinaruparb, director of the Artificial Rainmaking Centre for the Upper North, said two cloud-seeding aircraft had arrived from the Central airbase to support the rainmaking operation in the haze-affected provinces.

He said the centre's three aircraft were now working on a forest fire control mission in Chiang Rai and Mae Hong Son.

Mr Somchai said cloud-seeding chemicals would be sprinkled in the west of Chiang Mai to induce rain.

He expected rainfall in the next day or two as a result of the cloud-seeding operation.

Four helicopters from the Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry also showered the outskirts of Chiang Mai with water yesterday to raise humidity levels.

The Pollution Control Department yesterday reported better air quality in many provinces, but the level of particulate matter smaller than 10 microns (PM10) in these provinces was still above the maximum standard, of 120 microgrammes per cubic metre.

In Chiang Mai, the PM10 level had dropped to 176 ug/cu m in Chiang Mai, down from 184 on Friday.

Small dust particle content was measured at 120 ug/cu m in Lampang, 169 in Chiang Rai and 240 in Mae Hong Son.

The sky has opened up in Mae Hong Son. Better visibility prompted Thai Airways International to resume its three Chiang Mai-Mae Hong Son flights a day on Friday after a five-day cancellation.

But its subsidiary budget airline Nok Air has yet to resume service on the same route.

The Meteorological Department expected heavy precipitation in the upper North over the next few days, brought on by westerly winds from the Andaman Sea and a cool air mass from China

Bangkok Post March 18, 2007
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