Penang hit by haze
> Hotspots in neighbouring Riau in Indonesia to blame
GEORGE TOWN: The haze is back in Penang with residents on both the island and mainland waking up to a hazy morning yesterday as hotspots in neighbouring Indonesia raged.
State Environment Committee chairman Phee Boon Poh said satellite imagery found several hotspots in Riau, an Indonesian province along the eastern coast of Sumatra.
He said 192 hotspots were detected on Aug 24 while there were no open burning activities detected in Penang.
He said the haze was a transboundary issue and that hotspots were also detected in the west and centre of Kalimantan which borders Sabah and Sarawak.
“We are monitoring the situation,” he told theSun when contacted via text yesterday.
Despite the hazy situation, Air Pollutant Index (API) readings for three monitoring stations in Penang as at 11am hovered between good and moderate.
At that time, the API reading for Prai was recorded at 35, Seberang Jaya 2 recorded an API of 53 and USM recorded an API of 47.
An API of 0 to 50 is good, 51 to 100 is moderate while anything over 300 is hazardous.
Nonetheless visibility reduced over the morning as Bayan Lepas’s visibility was recorded at 4km at 11am, down from 7km at 8am.
Visibility at Butterworth was recorded at 5km while visibility at Prai was 7km with both readings recorded at 11am.
Office workers in high-rise buildings experienced low visibility as the iconic Penang Bridge could not be seen due to the hazy blanket while the Komtar tower was partially shrouded.