Tempo, citing The Straits Times, said Singapore's 24-hour PSI reached 173 in the central region on Friday, a 2026 high, as smoke from fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan drifted across the region.
Smoke from fires in Indonesia pushed Singapore's 24-hour Pollutant Standards Index to 173 in the central region on Friday, a 2026 high, Tempo reported, citing The Straits Times. The same account put the north at 117, the south at 154, the east at 147 and the west at 166. Tempo said the smoke came from fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan.
The BBC's Friday live coverage said wildfires have burned for weeks and that the haze has closed schools in several Malaysian states as Singapore hosts the Formula 1 weekend. dpa reported Friday that Malaysian authorities ordered widespread school closures and that flight operations were delayed in parts of Sumatra because of poor visibility.
Indonesia's health ministry has already recorded nearly 175,000 respiratory infections linked to the fires between July and September, the BBC said. A 23 September BBC report put the figure at about 175,000 cases since August, including more than 40,000 involving toddlers. Those are earlier ministry counts, not a new Friday total.
The BBC described this year's season as one of Indonesia's worst in years and attributed the fires mainly to illegal slash-and-burn clearing, worsened by a strong El Nino drought. Peat fires can burn underground and send smoke for days toward Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei.
The row is filed under Indonesia because the fires are there. Singapore and Malaysia are outside this brief's country list. No new national fire-area total for 9 October was in the Tempo or BBC accounts used here.
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- A Kuala Lumpur hospital worker told dpa that staff were seeing a surge of patients with acute respiratory problems.