Schools in two cities in the Indonesian part of Borneo Island will be closed for a week after smoke from forest fires caused air quality to hit "dangerous" levels, a local government official said Sunday.
Indonesia and neighboring countries in Southeast Asia are regularly hit by smoke from slash-and-burn clearances of forests for farms and palm oil plantations, but conditions this year have been the worst since 2015 due to an El Nino weather pattern causing an extended dry spell.
The air pollution index in Palangka Raya, the capital of Borneo's Central Kalimantan province, hit 500, or "dangerous," on Sunday, data from Indonesia's Environment and Forestry Ministry showed. Any reading above 100 is considered "unhealthy."