I am a
regular visitor to Singapore since last decade or so. I have been
here in all seasons. What I mean is that I have visited this place in
the months that relate to a particular season like summer or winter
as Singapore weather remains virtually same throughout the year and
it does not make any difference whether you are here in December or
in June. The weather pattern around a normal day essentially remains
same. Bright sunny mornings, sultry mid noon and then later heavy
downpour early evenings. Weather changes though, sometimes: we might
have a heavy downpour and thunderstorm in the dawn itself. On such
days. Singapore is at its best, because it remains fairly cool and
cloudy with a nice breeze blowing along. But such days are rare and
best thing one can do on such days is to go for a picnic in one of
the lovely parks around.
About
3 years ago, I was here during summer months. At that time, I had
witnessed a spell of dry days also. On such days, rain may disappear
altogether for days or even weeks and then the weather turns really
nasty. Unfortunately, this kind of hot weather brings another peril
over Singapore. The Indonesian island of Sumatra lies approximately
few hundred Km to west of Singapore. This island has acres and acres
of palm trees, which are grown here in plantations for Palm oil
extraction. During summer time, many Palm oil plantations plant new
seedlings after clearing forest lands. The easiest method of clearing
such forest lands is what is called as slash-and burn method, in
which forests are cut and then burnt. Incidentally, the land over
which, these forests have been in existence for thousands of years,
is known as peatland, that contains high percentage of peat; an
organic material consisting of spongy stuff formed by the partial
decomposition of organic matters. Peat can be used as a fuel. Readers
can well imagine how the fires ignited by the planters can possibly
spread and keep smouldering and smoking for months and weeks. These
fires get extinguished naturally by the tropical rains, that can
fall any time.
During
months of June and July, the moisture in this part of the world is
sucked away by the southwest Monsoon towards Indian subcontinent and
the result is that Sumatra bush fires can continue for weeks or even
months, if the season remains dry. These fires produce heavy smoke
that gets released in atmosphere and tonnes and tonnes of it are
carried over to skies in coastal Malaysia and Singapore and further
to South China Sea. For last few days, this is what is happening in
Singapore and is commonly called as haze here.
Haze
is just air pollution and is also measured by Pollutant Standard
Index or PSI. If PSI remains below 50, the air is considered normal
and healthy. For PSI values around 100, one starts noticing it and
above 300 it is called hazardous with any outdoor activity considered
risky. On 17th
June 2013, PSI crossed 100 in Singapore. Since this happens every
year, people were not much worried. But this year has turned out
exceptionally bad. PSI went within two days to 350 level and then
above 400. At this value of PSI, the advice is to stay indoors.
If one
looks outside, from a window, there is a grand deception of mist and
fog, having spread everywhere, but a little sojourn outside would
make your eyes watery: you would get probably sour throat and in some
cases breathlessness and headaches. Things are pretty bad here,
since last two days. No exercise of any kind is possible outdoors.
Government has advised that people should wear a N95 mask for
protection. I visited a hospital this morning, accompanying a
patient. There was a long queue at hospital pharmacy for buying N95
masks.
Singapore
Government, feeling helpless and unable to take any measures, keeps
blaming Indonesians, who says that Singapore is behaving like a small
child and they are trying to do all they can as est coast region of
Sumatra is also suffering even more, being nearer to the source of
fires. Finally Singapore's Prime Minister has accepted yesterday that
not much cane be done to improve the situation and Singaporeans have
to bear it.
I have
read earlier in books descriptions of what would happen in case of a
nuclear winter, caused by a catastrophic explosion on earth.
Singapore Haze is something like that, though on a smaller scale, I
think. I tried to photograph the Sun in the afternoon and the Moon in
the night. Both look so weird and out of this world.
Like million other Singaporeans, I am just sitting at home with all
windows closed. Luckily, with the top class Singapore infrastructure in place,
at least there is no power outage or zero chance of broadband
connection getting lost.
I am
just hazed out, that's all.
22
June 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment