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Singpaore offers Indonesia aid to combat transboundary haze

Xinhua, June 3, 2015 Adjust font size:

Singapore is renewing its offer of assistance to Indonesia to fight against land and forest fires which could lead to transboundary haze, the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources said on Wednesday.

In the new package, Singapore will deploy one C-130 aircraft for cloud seeding operations; up to two C-130 aircraft to ferry a fire-fighting assistance team from the Singapore Civil Defense Force (SCDF); a team from SCDF to provide assessment and planning assistance to Indonesian counterparts in their fire-fighting efforts as well as a Chinook helicopter with one SCDF water bucket for aerial fire-fighting.

The new package is the same as last year, local media said.

The Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources said the government has been offering assistance packages to the Indonesian government from June to October since 2005 to work with its neighbors to fight against possible land and forest fires, adding that the El Nino phenomenon this year may cause drier weather, which could exacerbate the impact of transboundary haze.

Singapore has been suffering from transboundary haze for decades, with the city-state's air pollution index soared to a record high in June 2013. The haze was mainly caused by forest fires in neighboring Indonesia.

To combat the air pollution, Singapore has rolled out the Transboundary Haze Pollution Bill last year, saying that companies that cause haze in Singapore by setting fires on their land will face a maximum fine of up to 2 million Singapore dollars (1.61 million U.S. dollars). Endi