SINGAPORE: Singapore's National Environment Agency (NEA) has warned residents of the Southeast Asian island-country that drier and an increase in temperatures are expected in the near future, citing the El Nino global weather phenomenon as the cause. The NEA told Bikyamasr.com on Friday that although current air quality indexes show that the city is doing fine, they are concerned that the dry temperatures could cause fires in Indonesia, which could then blow over the city. “We are watching closely and Indonesia is putting in some precautionary measures to reduce the chance of wildfires and burning so hopefully we don't see haze in Singapore soon, but we are prepared,” said an NEA official. Southern Thailand and northern Malaysia were recently hit by haze and poor air quality earlier this month. The haze in Southern Thailand is reportedly being caused by forest fires in Sumatra. Malaysia has also been hit hard by the haze, especially their northern states close to the Thai border. “Sumatra has more than 200 hotspots that can catch fire during hot weather. Monsoon winds blow the smoke over the border to Peninsular Malaysia," Malaysia's State Health, Welfare, Caring Society and Environment Committee Chairman Phee Boon Poh told Bernama news agency this month. 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."
