JAKARTA: Indonesia plans to use weather changing technology to try to unleash torrents of rain and extinguish raging fires on Sumatra island that have cloaked neighbouring Singapore in thick haze, an official said yesterday.
The city-state, which is home to 5.3 million inhabitants, has been pressing Jakarta to take action to put out the blazes, which have pushed air pollutant levels on the island to a 16-year high.
Indonesian forestry ministry official Raffles Panjaitan said the government planned to use a technology called “cloud-seeding” to try and put out the fires, that are mainly centred on peatlands in Riau province.
Helicopters would be sent into the skies above Sumatra to inject chemicals into clouds, which prompt the formation of heavy ice crystals, and so speed up the production of rain. The worst affected area was Bengkalis district, where 650 hectares (1,600 acres) of land was ablaze, he said, adding that 555 fires had been detected in Riau up from 356 the previous month.
Manila weather chief resigns
MANILA: The head of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) has stepped down, a weather official said yesterday.
PAGASA officer-in-charge Vicente Malano announced at a press conference the resignation of Dr Nathaniel Servando as administrator of the state weather bureau. Malano also received a text message from his former superior thanking all the people he worked with in PAGASA. Servando originally filed a three-month leave last February citing health reasons and “others.” He reportedly accepted a teaching job in Dubai, having the need for a higher salary to finance his children’s college education. The Aquino administration has expressed confidence that there is still enough manpower in the state weather bureau amid the reported exodus of meteorologists, including Servando.
Agencies
