KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's Port Klang continues to face unhealthy air quality, the country's department of environment said. According to the department, the Air Pollutant Index (API) showed that the Klang Valley is being hit with an increase in poor air and there are fears that it could worsen as dry weather hits the country. The department issued a statement around 5 PM on Tuesday, saying the API for Banting stood at 84, Cheras (80), Kuala Selangor (76), Petaling Jaya (73) and Batu Muda (73). The same areas recorded readings of 77, 73, 77, 67 and 65 respectively in the late morning. A good API reading is from 0-50, moderate (51-100), unhealthy (101-200), very unhealthy (201-299) and hazardous (from 300 and above). “Port Klang recorded unhealthy air quality readings for the second day in a row but its API has improved from 122 on Monday evening to 109 as of 5pm yesterday,” the department said in a statement. The new warnings over air standards come less than two months after the country was hit by a black cloud of poor air that saw the government tell residents in the country to remain indoors. The haze has been a major problem facing Malaysia and other Southeast Asian countries in recent years. The main culprit of this haze is the slash and burn practice by farmers and peat fires in Indonesia, experts say. But also in Malaysia, the government is not doing enough to reform farming practices, which Yussif Hassan, an environmental consultant in Selangor told Bikyamasr.com, “is a major issue that is seeing haze become more prominent in recent times." He argued that “the Malaysia government must work to end the practices that throw debris and dust into the air, because if we don't do this soon, it will debilitate the environment and people's health." The first major crisis to hit the country was in 2005 in Port Klang, where the Air Pollution Index rose to above 500, a devastating and extremely dangerous level. Both Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta are, however, working together on new policies to end the problem, but Hassan says movement is too slow. “They need to move faster if this is to be solved, because although the recent problem was not terribly dangerous, it has the potential if nothing is done," he added.
