KUCHING: Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas is hopeful that the haze situation will continue to improve as extensive efforts to curb hotspots continue.
“The Air Pollution Index (API) for Sri Aman as at 8am (yesterday, September 18) was 239. It has dropped from 407 (on Tuesday, September 17) and we hope it will continue to drop,” he said.
Nevertheless, he stated that Sri Aman divisional disaster management committee held a meeting yesterday morning to coordinate activities and actions to contain peatland fires raging in the district.
“There are two hotspots in Sri Aman that we hope can be extinguished today,” he told reporters after presenting cheques to representatives of various state constituencies in the first phase of the Unit for Other Religions’ (Unifor) fund distributions at Wisma Bapa Malaysia in Petra Jaya here, yesterday.
Uggah, who is State Disaster Management Committee (JPBN) chairman revealed that manpower from the Fire and Rescue Department (Bomba) in Betong and Saratok were being mobilised to assist in dousing the forest fires in Sri Aman.
He noted that the API recorded at 8am yesterday in Kuching and Samarahan were 173 and 154 respectively, also a decreasing trend.
However, despite these positive signs, he cautioned that hotspots in Kalimantan remained at 452 — “That is not good news”.
“We hope hotspots will be reduced because the current haze is mostly transboundary. There are not many hotspots in Sarawak — we only have 17.
“These are all small hotspots and under control,” Uggah remarked.
With regards to the water supply disruption in Sri Aman caused by the prevailing drought, he said that the Rural Water Supply Department (JBALB) was taking action to address the issue.
“We are finding short-term solutions to provide water for the requirements of Sri Aman. Secondly, we are looking at long-term solutions for the problem to make sure it will not happen again in the future,” Uggah stated.
On cloud seeding, he told reporters, “I am going to have a meeting soon to assess whether there are clouds that we can do cloud seeding with.”
He said the cloud seeding team would initiate cloud seeding as soon as the Meteorological Department notices there are clouds, especially over Sri Aman to facilitate the operation.
