Thursday, August 11, 2005

This wasn't in the brochure

For the 4th day in a row now KL is blanketed under a layer of smoke so thick I can barely see across the road. Visibility is down to under 100m in some places. Schools have closed. The fish are going belly-up in the fish farms for lack of oxygen. Hell, the air even smells like a good old fashioned highveld grassfire.

In typical fashion the authorities are telling us as little as possible. What we do know is that the API (air pollutant index) has reached "dangerously unhealthy levels." We also know that the smoke is the result of open burning which the Malaysian government routinely blames on Indonesia.

The hysteria is reaching a fever pitch; there are calls for the government to seed the clouds in the hope of creating rain to wash the sky. The only solution is for all of us to look west and blow as hard as we can.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

When I was a student in London the pea-soup fogs were similar, visibility about 5 metres. The cause was an inversion, low temperature and a million people burning coal. All changed now. Los Angeles has the same situation caused by exhaust fumes.